


Caught 'Twixt Love and Nausea Part III

by Kimbeen



Series: Caught 'Twixt Love and Nausea [3]
Category: Maurice (1987), Maurice - E. M. Forster
Genre: M/M, Retelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-02 09:27:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4054927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kimbeen/pseuds/Kimbeen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Let's wrap this bad boy up</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Let's wrap this bad boy up

Chapter 1

 

Fuck. Fuck, no, this is awful... I rake my hand through my hair, t'other jammed trembling in my pocket, as I look back the hotel, eyeballs bobbing from window to window as I don't know which room was ours.. his.

 

Where he is now, I've left him.. him alone up there, shirtless, the sheets cold around him, I know what he's doing, propped up on the pillows like an invalid, shocked and disbelieving, dashed and destroyed, completely unmoving and silent, just staring at the wall across from the bed, there's an etching on that wall, I saw'd it when we come into the room, though then I were too enchanted with him to mark any details other than his face, his jawline, smile, nose, rumpled hair from the taxi ride and walk to the hotel (I nearly got him on a bus, fancy that! He'd seem too big, too tall and grand for it but would've stood close to me, watching me careful so he'd know what stop to disembark at, I'd grab him, together we'd jump), those eyes, smoky and dark and dominating but right then, right _now_ pleading, weakened and open, dull and hopeless..

 

With all my will, I stalk tall away from the hotel in an effort to leave him and my feelings behind also, the far side of that grimy glass door. I ask for the way to the rail-way station off of a stout middle-aged gent and his wife. I hope that my roughness, coarseness, which I cannae mask is compensated by my polite manner and the winsome smile I manage to dredge up, though it on my unshaven face it might make for a somewhat manic countenance..

 

Though cautious, they point the way, eastwards where the sun is lighting behind the sharp cruel tops of buildings and puffing smoke and crying seagulls. About an hour's walk, although the man warns me – with a pat on the arm I did not expect! - to make sure and barrel my way through and not manoeuvre through the crowds or I'd take all day. “I'm from Lancashire myself.”

 

Ordinarily I would have nattered with them, passed the time of day, but this isn't ordinary, not by a country mile, so today – I thank them, square my shoulders and trudge east, away from – him.

 

Don't look over my shoulder but twice. * groan *

 

I want to go back.

 

Surrounded by all these strangers, I want to go back.

 

I can _feel_ his want, his need for me, totally inside and natural, like ocean waves pulling me!

 

Yearning me over, Alec, please! Alec please come back and save me!

 

O God!! This accursed city! I cover my mouth, the sickness swelling in me, throbbing in me gullet, and I thrust myself into the thicket of people. Got to – get away, like there's a warrant on my head!!

 

 

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

 

 

Coming home were so very strange. Not wondrous strange. Shitty strange. Cold, dull, sickly. Sat on the jam-packed train, the tracks rhythmically clanking underneath me, people shouldering me constant, and knocking my knees and their smells and noises and struggles and warmth and laughter and rustling of newspapers and sweet wrappers..

 

I feel so separate from them all; though my cap matches the men's, my boots, suit... I am a foreigner. Something's been stripped off of me forever – my own self I were so used to. Stripped to reveal: what? This is what I am now? This hollow spectre? Lad with no sleep?

 

Folding me arms, and staring, not seeing, doleful. It was like a dream, or a beautiful sad song sung by a lassie, over and over.

 

Getting of the train and helping a woman with three kiddies haul their bags onto their carriage gives me something mercifully mindless and physical to do, stop me brooding. Don't work, but she's ever so grateful, inviting me round for tea but I decline polite as I can, say I'm expected at home. True, in any case – it certainly weren't expected that I'd take off for London overnight!

 

But Ma thinks I'm at work, staying over with a pupping bitch. Penge thinks I'm at home with my 'sick aunt' – I were so conflustered when Ayres barked at me asking why in blazes wouldn't I be in the next day, that were the first pathetic excuse I could think of.

 

You'd think I'd be accustomed to lying at this stage. At least I were brave and honest in the hotel room this morning taking my leave. It's for the best. So. I've covered my tracks pretty well, only -

 

“HEY! Alec!”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“God, but you're away with the fairies these days! Dreaming of all the adventures you's about to embark on?”

 

Freddie. I just smile at him tiredly – for all he knows, I were merely at work all day yesterday – and last night – as per absolute usual. Nothing queer, or strange, _or_ fantastic or out of the ordinary _in_ it.

 

Bugger me, I wish I _had_ been at work yesterday up until now, been through the wringer this last day and no mistake. Wish things were still normal and would stay that way.

 

“Just as well you're home! Lookit, I know it's a royal, but you'd never go in and just spend some time with Ma, right? Dad too, sure you'll soon be gone forev- er, that is, gone for a good while, for a good _time_. You'd want to make them certain-like, that you'll be fine abroad, you're well capable, sure look at you! Smart as sixpence! You'll be grand, better, you'll be laughing! Aww, last night Mam were _cryin' –_ missin' you already she says, though God knows why!! Eh? _Ha_!”

 

Your elbows are very _pointy_ in my ribs, Fred. He continues as if he hasn't heard; “She's away visiting Mrs. Betchley but if she knows you're back – she'll be haring home! I'll fetch her – you get started on the tea, eh? Help her...”

 

“Oh right, of course. Ma. Mmm, God love her, but I'll have to get to work..”

 

Fred tips his head. “Didn't you just come from there?”

 

Alec, wrong-footed once again: “Um.. yeh, course I did, all day I been there! Only, just those pups, want to check on 'em regular-like, see the fox don't get 'em, or rats, the bitch, she's fair done in.” I feel rotten to the core telling all these lies, even ensnaring that poor old beagle Puddles into my deceit – she _is_ pregnant and here I am capitalizing on that when I likely won't even be here to help her birthing.

 

Oh no! Tears sting my eyes.

 

Fred sees, pats my shoulder. “Come on, old man. I know it's hard... easier to avoid the Mister and Missus when they get like this! But.. you _will_ be far away and soon with it, so just.. go in and – well, charm them, like, the way you do, you know there's no-one they dote on more'n you.”

 

Alec: “Wot?! You're the golden boy!”

 

Fred: “And you're the pet. Pets are for mollying and loving – don't pretend you don't play up to it!”

 

Is that what I'm for? Loving? Like a brickie is for building?

 

Fred, leading me into the warm: “Why've you your haversack with you?”

 

Alec: “Erm... I were collecting anything of mine own I happened to leave at work. I weren't pilfering!”

 

Freddy: “Well! Good.”


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

 

“Alec lad! There you are! They're sure wringing the last out of you up at the Big House, nay?” Dad gets up as I come in though there's no need, no need...

 

I: “Aye, aye...”

 

Pa: “Shall I put the kettle on?”

 

Alec: “Oh, no dad, I'll do that! You look fair done in.”

 

Pa: “Aah... thanks son. I were hauling that shank around, must've weighted ten stone! Well-fed blighter, good colour too, I'll say it'll shoot out the door, well in time for Sunday.”

 

Alec, wrapping a yellow tea-towel round the poker-hot handle of the kettle and going to the well-bucket to fill it: “Dad, no! I _told_ you I'd help you move that shank -”

 

Dad waves: “Not a bit of it, laddie, I handled it grand! You've your hands full at the moment – anyroad I'll have to cope without you permanent soon enough, aye?” Hobbles off to wash his hands.

 

Alec – er, _I_ look on, holding the kettle, wet and hot with steam and guilt. I _know_ how much the Tuesday deliveries weigh – lord, do I ever. Shit, I should have been here! Head in the clouds these days, how often have I heard that said to me over the last week. But, it's not like I'll be here next week either.. Nor the week after that or...

 

Putting the kettle on the hook, I excuse myself to nobody – Dad's still in the scullery – and rush upstairs like a lady with the vapours and barrel into my room, leaning back on the door slamming it and clutching my chest, breathing hard. Glancing up at the rusty little looking-glass on the wall opposite, I see a bruise left, on my neck, teethmarks, tongue and lipmarks, I touch the purple and brown, trembling.

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

_Later, by the hearth._

 

Clock ticking, Dad picking at the cuts on his hands; Ma reading aloud to the room at large from her women's periodical, remedies for callouses she's found an article on, it doesn't say not to pick at them but I'm sure that's common sense, far be it for me to tell the old fella his business though!

 

“Oh, well I never – says that 'rum and it' would put it to rights! Do you believe that, Bert?”

 

Winking: “I believe if you were to send it down my neck it couldn't do my hands any harm – nor owt else neither!

 

She clutching her chest, wheezing with the laughing, looking over at me, making sure I've heard:

 

“Did you – well I nev- I meant _rubbing_ it into your sores, Bert – oh my Lord what is to be done with you at all! Proper caution!” Great cackling that could be added to, prolonged but...

 

I'm sat leaned totally back, biting the nails on one hand while the other's tucked comfy in the waistband of my cords. Mam tells me not to, says don't be su'crass, but I do it anyway, sometimes I can get away with it, like tonight! Reckon I could loll about the place starkers and I'd be let, the pair of them so reet bathetic over me leaving! Ma about forced that third bowl of chicken stew down me gob, and Dad were near as bad, making out he had 'far too many' dumplings in his bowl and kept popping them into mine, as I love them so. I do.

 

It's hard, they're so near.. “..and the smallest thing sets him off, that's the trouble, no sawdust on the meat, if you please, says he, and -” “He criticizing your workmanship! Bert, you should tell him about that time you won that award -” “Yes, yes, everyone knows, it's up in the shop, dear..” “Well it weren't for painting the stars you got it! Cleanest establishment – that's what the mayor said -”

 

“Gertie -” “..he'd seen all that Market Day! Now for you, or Mr. Chiswick, or anyone else who'd pass comment on a speck of _sawdust_!” “It was probably because everywhere else was awash with drunks, to be fair!” “Ach, not this argument again, Bertie, just take the praise why can't you!”

 

“Could be I'm so unaccustomed to it..” “OH! Well I say and declare and I never! Mister Scudder. _Mark_ him, Licky, did you ever hear such lip!”

 

Can barely _fit_ my fingers inside my pants, me belly's that fit to strain through me gear! Though Fred's vowed to get me all kitted out new, out abroad, even new working keks, so won't be needing this frayed old navy waistcoat of cousin Roy's, nor indeed these comfy old cords (particularly snug at the present..).

 

Wi'me feet within in the fire, near about, I could about doze off, though as per Freddy's instructions I'm supposed to be talking with Mum and Dad, whatever it is I want to say to them face to face, and have said to me, in case I never clap eyes on them again – isn't that a lovely thought. Just peachy. Mind you, Fred managed to come back here from the great beyond and check all and fetch me, didn't he? Though he has a good job, don't he? And anyroad. He's different. _Worse._

 

For bossing, I mentersay, than he used to be. I were finishing my second helping of rhubarb crumble and custard, out of politeness to Mother, sure where would she store it? Pantry's needing to be getting ready for preserve season, the conserves and chutneys and jellies and delicious sweet jams and marmalade! Well – they need the room in the cupboards, so...

 

Anyway, so there I were living up to my name a-licking the last of it from the bowl when Fred up and grabs his hat and high-tails it away to another meeting of the World Workers or whatever it were called – Osmington Branch. Stir them right up, feverish, he will, get them all riled up fighting, ready for action – and then what?

 

Away back to the Argentine with him! Is it any wonder he don't have a woman permanent at his age? As me Ma would mutter – ships that pass in the night. I used to fancy myself right similar, and proud of it – until lately. Just now I don't want any business with any kind of ship. Oh Maurice.

Don't think badly of me. Can't we leave it as a nice memory?

 

Can we?

 

“Oh, Alec, pet, your cuff?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

Ma's got her sewing basket out and is darning a worn doily to rights; when she gets to her mending her eyes do be _extra_ attuned to holes in garments, and split seams, and tattered edges, and patches coming off, and cigarette burns. Course she has a field day wi'me, calls me a -

 

“Honestly! You're like a rag-doll! Barely kep' together!” _Feels_ that way sometimes; if I ever get up, if I leave this hearth, I may fall apart.

 

“Show me your coat, Licky, I'll have it to rights for you. I've gone through all the clothes in your trunk, seen that you're fit to be seen..” Waits for me to say something cheeky as I do; Dad glancing over his glasses too, hopeful.

 

Internally, I shake, I rally, and I root around and dig up:

 

“Ee, nay, how's about you sew some natty patches on while you're at it, eh? Some red lapels” - I grab 'em and raise me eyebrows a few times “or – tartan blue at the cuffs” - I wave my hands into her laughing face, and says Dad, right on cue, as this were a comic vaudeville show on stage -

 

“Forget thy cuffs and collars, laddie, and how about a red patch on the seat!!” Sitting room erupts with uproarious laughter! The Scudder Screamers! That's how our familial boisterous laugh has many times distinguished us at weddings and village fêtes and when the vicar fell down by the alter Advent last...! In our own ways we all suffer a lack of discretion. None more so than I – though I've not been lumbered yet, have I? Any bastarding I do get up to, well, I do my – usually futile – level best to keep hush-hush. If anyone shops me, it'll be my own self and serves me right!!

 

Here, me and the folks a-clutching our stomachs collective and wiping the old eyes after a right chuckle... this is what Fred were arter, angling for me to cozy up real good and affectionate-like with the aul pair, make us some fond parting memories for comfortage in the future and show my sunny countenance at full beam so as to make my departure that much easier on them.

 

But what about me?! I'm heartbroken! Miserable! Bereft, damned... emptied! It's every bit as awful as all those soppy songs and ballads and girlish novels make it out to be. Just, absolute _despair_ , it is, and having to keep it all bottled up and lidded and what's more act like I'm as happy as a pig in muck to be leaving – feel like as if I'm losing my mind, small and all as it was in the first place!

 

No, I'm not empty. I've been tipped out, yes, but then filled right back up again with a torrent of new feelings, none of them good.

 

“Oh Licky. Alec, lad. I _am_ main going to miss you.”

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

 

 

Working up me hours – well, that's a laugh for a start. I'm up at Penge again, for my sins, completely disinclined to do anything constructive – and what's more, no sod is _making_ me do anything, neither. Feel like a dead man walking, the way Ayres seems to think there's no point in giving me the usual bits to do – no point in me at all, in fact!

 

Simcox just gave me the briefest of nods when he saw me ambling by with my hands in my cords; the girls look at me, them smiling sorrowful before rushing away with their mops and buckets or armfuls of linen or sacks of flour.

 

Couldn't knock any bit of fun out of any of the lads even – can't seem to find them – oh yeh, they's most probably tearing up the floor in the leaky old parlour, and any other day Simcox would have dragged me over by the _curls_ , he caught me idling like I am doing, a-leant against a tree, and I'd be there likely tugging on the heavy end of the flaming grandfather clock a-grousing and griping at Peter to fucking _tell_ me if he's going to sway left or right sudden, my fingers slipping and sliding all over the shop and barely able to grip, and old Pete laughing fit to burst that he's the driver, see, and Alec, you're just the engine – aye, I can see it now, hear it, just as before. Only t'other day.

 

So why don't I go over there now and jump right into the thick of it as usual? Because – I'm apart, see – and they know it too. I'm different, gone, a foreigner – they think it's because I'm sailing tomorrow – and nor more did I – but looming Argentina is not actually the source of my isolation.

 

Being in love is some caper!!

 

* * * * *

 

“Penny for 'em, Face-ache,” - voice tickling my ear and fingers tickling my waist, and me nearly leaping out of my skin, my tightly-folded arms bursting open, them's being the first words I'd had spoken to me today, and the friendliest, I feel, in longer.

 

I needn't even whirl to see there grinning, laughing, Davey gives a tug on my cap, it down over my eyes, and by the time I've a-shoved his shoulder and righted myself, I've managed to put a mask up – out of somewhere, anywhere – and look on him brows-raised, sighing, disapproving, put-upon, parental, him cackling away like a chicken.

 

“Ee, reckon I've never seen old Scudder so deep in thought! And I'd've said his mind no deeper than a puddle!”

 

How I wish _that_ were true, I'm here _drowning_ in my mind! But aloud:

 

“And old Davey? He's nowt more'n a _spit_ ” - and I spit, a meaner joke than I'd usually make but Davey continues to smile, and pocket his hands, dark green eyes slightly wide, watching, listening me carefully.

 

“So. Did you have a nice 'oliday?” Here he shakes out a Benson's, so I know I'm being buttered. Fag's a fag though. I take it between my lips anyway as he continues to rake his eyes over my face and avoiding eyes; sucking in when he hovers the flame and coughing out a thanks.

 

“Holiday, he says! I like _that._ And me- and me at home in me sick-bed -”

 

“Don't talk such _rot_ , Alec, you're fit as a fiddle! In fact, you're looking more healthy and well-fed -”

 

“Hoi!!”

 

“- than you have done in an age. You trying to tell me that only yesterday you was all flu'd up? Pull the other one, son.”

 

Tapping the ash away careless, I chuckle and avoid his eyes watchful – careful.

 

“Fair enough, fair enough. I were kept at home a-running round doing all manner of odd jobs for the aul fella, him squeezing every bit of usefulness out of me as he can, seeing as how I'll be gone soon! I tell you – glad to be shot of the place!” Tears in my eyes I can combat with a comical squeeze of them. My heart feels a bit contracted too.

 

“Playing errand-boy for your folks. Is that so.” Davey looks over at the Big House, where the Lady and the Old Bag are taking another of their famous Turns about the Garden – Sal told me once that when it rains, they instead take 'walks' round and round the drawing room – I kid you not. Barking.

 

Davey blows out his smoke, waits a little, then goes a-making his next drag. I feel irritation start in my right shoulder; it tenses.

 

Alec: “It's so.”

 

“It is? Funny, because I biked over to Scudder Meats and Victuals, yesterday, for to call on you, I were concerned, like, when I heard you were laid up.. your dad were there and your ma happened by too, on her way down the village with her basket. _They_ seemed pretty satisfied that you was up at Penge, as usual, at work, and the Mrs even mentioned how very _well_ you'd been lately. Thrivin', she said. Not sick, as such. Nowhere near..”

 

I fold my arms and wait, pulling my usual habit of dragging on me fag and expelling the smoke with no hands, mouth only. True sign of a man who has to use his hands for a living!

 

“Of course I went _along_ , Alec. _I'm_ no snitch. I said yeh, sure, Alec's looking well, saw him this morning out the West Copse setting the snipe traps – what _I'd_ been doing all day actually – but I suppose I got to wondering. Not so much where you were, yesterday, but why you felt you couldn't tell me.”

 

Now he looks over. If his eyes had been just hurt and confused, I might have blubbed out everything. But there's something else in his look too, something that has me so all-fired defensive and petulant and misunderstood – was it disapproval? Disappointment? Fatherly concern – that expression of indulgent exasperation I tend to get from Freddie on the regular with my antics.

 

“So,” says I, and turned to look at him fully in the face at last, “you found me out. So I went on the mitch for a while. Tell me, Davey, what advantage would it have been at all for me to tell you?”

 

Funnily enough, no more than Freddie, Davey, though fond of me, is not accustomed to or welcoming of any back-talk from me, any severe, non-jesting arguments. He reddens a little.

 

“That's besides the point. I _know_ where you were or at least, what you were doing, or – who..” Trails off now as I continue to look at him. Heart thumping, I brace myself – physically even, I tighten my chests – to feel panic, shame, remorse, but – nothing of the sort comes. I remember the feeling of strong, excited hands sliding up my arms and down my legs and in circles on my back, and I cannot feel anything other than pleased.

 

Davey isn't. “Oh Alec lad... you daft baggage. What you gone and done now, you silly sod. What'll I do with you at all?” His eyebrows knit up worrisome. Lowering a timbre, even though we're alone, way the hell out by the west deer-park ditch, he: “Remember. You have a choice.”

 

Alec: “No I don't.”

 

Davey: “I don't mean about how you feel, but what you do about it.”

 

Alec: “....”

 

Here he – Davey – quite unexpectedly to us both – touches my curls, my ear, my cheek with his calloused fingers, and gently cupping my jaw with his hand and – to his own clear wild panic, shame, remorse, staring at his movements as if his hand had a loose lawless life of its own – now stroking my now-smooth upper lip with his thumb.

 

Firstly I have my eyebrows raised and my breath caught. But on those soft strokes... Feels so nice I close my eyes and lean my face into his hand slightly, but: I don't know.. or, I _do_ know.

 

Opening my eyes, I know what this is. Alright, here it is, out in the open: Yes, I've tried it on with old Davey before. Once or twice _only_. Well, he's a good-looking guy! And well, we do be drinking together a _lot._

 

Nothing ever happened though, no _hon_ est, I assure thee. Maybe some playful nuzzling, or affectionate squeezing as we'd a-haul each out other of of the pub and down the lane homeward, fingers gripping coats and waistcoats and laughing and stumbling, I might have _maybe_ made a grab for him un-warrented-like; leaned heavy on him when my balance weren't _that_ bad, or holded his hand giggling idiotically when I knowed the way home perfectly well.. maybe got so far as whispering in his ear then softly, just a suggestion like, and surely sliding my lips towards his mouth..

 

Davey, what a sweetheart. His ruddy cheeks and dark red hair, and big green eyes. He'd laugh. He'd never lamp me or slap me away or let a roar out of him when I got a little carried away thus. But there was enough.. I don't know.. defence, or wariness in his manners that I knew rightly not to go no further. And once I were happy enough with that. He was, too.

 

Present. Terrified, he looks on as his hand on my face trembles sweaty. Oh Dee.. I know he wants me – wants me _around_ , that is, like you like your mates about you. Your own ones. But he don't want me _in that way_ , the way I know now, I need now. Reading all this in the current situ I feel a wave of sympathy and affection for the man as I can well recognize the confusion and regret in his face: I started something and I couldn't finish it. Hard to put a lid on something, int it? But it can be done.

 

Aaah.. us two... peas in a pod, they all say, only, not similar e _nough_. You're lacking something, Davey, what I have. What Maurice has too – a jolt in my stomach. There's no _badness_ in thee, oh no.. I place my hand over his'n what's frozen on my jawline. I gently move his hand and make as if to kiss his scabby knuckles.. before I BITE down on his finger, playful, then harder as I _am_ a little bit peeved at his interference and game playing!

 

Davey wails. “AAAARGH!! Alec, you fucking _flute_ , you!!”

 

Attempting to pull his hand back to safety, I'm having none of it and, cackling, yank him off-balance off the fence and onto the worn ground. Winded, on his back, he groans, and _groans_ further when I carefully stand on his broad chest.

 

Wobbling, readying, looking down on his reddening face keenly, I: “Shall I jump? I'm feeling so gay and carefree. Shall I jump for joy?” Instead of replying word-ally, Davey punches me in the bollocks and I go down like a sack of spuds.

 

Owwwwie!!! Clutching for dear life, my poor little...!

 

Both too injured to keep a-wrassling, we trade breathless insults for a bit, and laughing, and I consider that all the same, larks as they is, this wasn't as much fun as when Maurice and me were romping round that four-poster in London, affecting to fight but really just using the 'sport' as an excuse to pin down various thrashing limbs and parts to caress and to kiss.

 

Old Maurice, eh... He gave me such a cheeky look when he pretended to give me a Chinese burn on me arm; I told him he'd be better fixed applying the same sort of attention to my dick, and he could've, but he couldn't, he just threw back his head and laughed!

 

At that moment I wanted to take his hand, drag him out onto a green in the sunshine, and shout and throw down coats for goals and play football and tackle the ball off of him and clap his back and tousle his locks when he scored; then have him bring me back to the bed and press me down into it..

 

“Oi, Alec.” I look over at Davey; sort of bizarrely, we're both on our backs panting with exertion.

 

He extends a hand. “Help a fellow up?” Not sure if he's offering or requesting – that's how back on equal terms we is. Things is back to normal between Davey and I. Still. Not sure I want normal no more. I've had more.

 

Davey paws at me, I swat his hand. “Wot, and lose a finger? _Give_ over!!”

 


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

 

Promising, on my mother's _life_ , that I'd not pull another disappearing act this evening and that I would most unequivocally present myself at the bar of the Honeychurch tonight at 7 P.M prompt, for to be well saturated and lubricated and filled and fed and sated for to prepare me for my impending departure from these fair shores tomorrow.

 

“Cor, c'n I have that in writing Our Davey? Right beautiful sentiment that!” That got me a goosing, the last of the tension melting away.

 

But now, I'm sat here plaintive on the stile, gun in hand and chin in t'other, my mind drifts... back to other responsibilities.

 

Maurice.

 

Who'll tease on him now, who'll talk to him and laugh with him, look for him to come home, who'll know him well enough to recognize that sadness, who'll congratulate him and squeeze him for his little victories, who'll mop him up when things go wrong?

 

Jesus, it aches me.. this is ten times bigger than sex, is it any wonder my head is wrecked with him!

 

Thing is, I have people. I've me folks, Freddie, and Sandra, Anna, Our Willium, and any number of cousins, neighbours, Davey and the lads. Maurice said he's lonely. “Bitterly lonely,” - the tone of quiet despair, painful confession that still sends the frighteners right up me. He's not close to his family – that much is clear; houseful of priggish, clucking women by all accounts. His co-workers down at the bank, or whatever it is, they'll be just that: other people he happens to work besides, dull black-suited, remote – like Maurice himself appeared to be in London, you didn't know him as well as I.

 

So. What does that mean? Where does that leave him. Apart from me, who has he?

 

“SCUDDER!! Have you cloth-ears or what!”

 

Holy _heckfire_!! Spinning round I see a flash of Durham coming at me at a half-run, before I lose my bally balance and topple off the stile, landing painfully where your spine meets your shoulders. Flossie the hopeful retriever licks my face as the squire looms into my blinking view, surrounded by sky and swaying treetops above me.

 

And ain't he on right regular form. “Look, I know that you're very nearly on your way to -” * waves his arm dismissive * “'seek your fortune', but remember: you're not on that boat _yet_.”

 

I heave myself back up standing; he backs away lest he feel obliged to help me up, to touch me. I'd forgotten how dirty the cleaner classes can make you feel. But I'll have to crawl. I don't think we've interacted, we two, since I got my handshake on Boxing Day last.

 

“I'm happy to work out my hours, sir.”

 

“I'm glad to hear it. Now listen -”

 

I wait. He merely looks at me, then at the sky, the ground.

 

“Um, sir -”

 

“LISTEN, I say!”

 

Right. The squire's finally gone and lost his marbles. Overly obligingly, I tilt my right ear – my better ear – towards him and – CRACK! CRACK!!

 

“There! There now! You hear?” He points excitedly in several different directions as he emphasizes his words.

 

“Gunshots,” I say, adding: “In lower western quarter of the deerpark, most likely, sir.”

 

Swerving his body round to me, flashing eyes - “Yes, MY deerpark! And you just sitting here? Couldn't you hear? What good are you anyway, for God's sake!”

 

Unsure which question to answer first, or if indeed I have permission to reply at all, I scratch my stubble; and ginger, cautious: “Well sir, I heared it, it's not unusual for someone or other to be out on the Hunt this time of day so I paid it no mind -”

 

“NOBODY'S out on the bloody Hunt! We've no guests currently! Didn't you realize you'd be accompanying them if there were? Idiot boy!!”

 

Ohh... _ooohh..._ This I won't miss, that's for truth, I won't be sorry to see the last of this.. the back of _this_ bastard. I mean... look at him. Just regard. Having a coronory in his plus fours with his snooty moustache and carefully styled hair and pristine riding boots – that's what he is really, break it down to brass tacks – a ridiculous, angry little man.

 

And yet, here _I_ am, having to go to him, cap in hand, for permission to do any amount of menial tasks for a pittance of a pay! Where is the justice in that? Maybe Old Fred's more than just so much hot air!

 

Another shot rings out – two – three – there's two of them, I'd say, none too skilled neither -

 

“POACHERS, Scudder, poachers!” says Durham, grabbing my shoulder and yanking me round to face him, which I do, sulkily. Wish I had the brass neck to moodily shake his hand _off'n_ me.

 

“Right, so...” I squirm with discomfort as he frowns into the trees. I feel it would be dangerous to repeat: “So..?”

 

“Well, what are you going to _do_ about it? Not just stand there gaping like a fish.”

 

I glance myself at the trees. “Call the bobby?”

 

Durham's face clouds over. “What nonsense! We're miles from the village and the constable's never at the station at the best of times! I tell you, when _I'm_ elected, when... I've my seat -” he whirls around, wild-eyed, now tousle-haired, anxious, confused.

 

I step back careful, wondering and a bit disquieted by the prickling concern for this bumbler idiot in my heart. Maurice - he's what done this on me. He humanized the gentry! Miserably I watch the squire wringing his hands and glancing up at the house, the woods, up at the sky. My giddy aunt...

 

“Fair enough sir, I'll... I'll go sort it out, shall I?” I've said 'I' that many times as to be honest, though he's foisted all responsibility onto me, I could think him a lazy, cowardly git for it, truth is I don't want him coming along, snapping twigs and pushing branches sprung wildly and moaning fit to burst.

 

“Er – yes. Yes, see to that, if you would.” He seems to draw strength from his pomposity and straightens his shirt collar and pushes the wrinkles out of his liney pants.

 

“Right you are, sir,” I say, tipping and now eager to get away. He's being right strange and nervous and reminding me powerful – despite meself – of Maurice. That same rush of panic and desperation and confusion when the veneer slips. Durham isn't a patch on Maurice in other respects though; I run my eyes only half-interestedly up and down his legs.

 

Another gunshot rings out and he looks only faintly annoyed, only a slight brow-frown. Something else is what truly ails him, and he's just venting his spleen on me, that's blatant. Deciding I need no further instruction, I doff and slip away behind me into the woods and once I reach the thicket I break into a run, aye, wi'me gun and all, though I know if I stumble or crash as I'm liable to do or fall in a pothole or trip on a briar I could cause an accidental discharge and blow my own brains to Timbuktu.

 

Well, nuts and berries to Timbuktu! Have to release all this pent-up energy somehow, I'm like a March Hare.. Now, running, nor indeed, shooting, wouldn't be my _preferred_ method of physical relief... but whose fault is that? I up and left him of my own violation...

 

Panting, I put the brakes on and slow down as I approach, un-shot, the western bottoms, slowly and stealthily, I creep through the forest, following – hello, yes – the sounds of voices and barking and as I get closer, cartridges being inexpertly changed, used bullets scattered about carelessly.

 

Keeping to the thicker hedgerows for to conceal me, I use the lower hanging branches of the trees above as natural cover to hide me from being spied by – Oh, flaming _heck_!!

 

I leap up standing, leaves fluttering round me, all careful concealment and 'survival mode' gone out the window. Just a bunch of bleedy _kids_ , is what it is, wrassling and whooping and aiming they's guns – badly – at the wood-pigeons overheard, who are not even bothering to hurry on their way nor coo in any panic. The girleens by the stream watch the lads showing off and laugh, they sat dainty-like on the edge of the water with their little feet dipped in among the swaying reeds and they splashing each other. What idyll... until...

 

“OI! You lot! What are ye _playing_ at?! You – _you_ , Jamie Fontaine, don't think running'll do you any good, I know where you-all live -”

 

“'Allo Alec!” One of the other lads, Mickey Devonshire, tries to distract me while Jamie seems unsure as to whether to toss down the gun or gather it up with his coat and cap and scarper. Barry Eccles hides behind the dog who's barked once or twice in my direction, got no reaction and is now attempting to hide in his own paws.

 

Over at the shore-side, the girls have all hopped up and are making a holy show out of wringing their skirts and fluttering about for their shoes... Jamie's sister Lucy Fontaine, and Eileen and Katherine Burchill, they's hair all in ringlets for a day's dossing about in the woods, would you credit it! Florence Wyse – Floz to all – brings up the rear, a-snivelling into her sleeve.

 

The usual suspects. They all look wide-eyed and lip-trembling at me.

 

“What a sorry-looking shower,” I say, I – whoops, I've me gun drawn, though pointing at the ground. Swiftly, I swing it up into my grip (they duck), and disable, folding it over my arm neatly.

 

“Have ye nothing better to be doing of a fine afternoon?” I scold them, doing my level to appear adult and sounding, I'm afeared, more like a child acting one in a play.

 

“No,” says Mickey, adopting my usual slack shouldered, hands in pockets, leaning on-one-foot lazy stance.

 

Mr. Scudder: “I should call the constable, I should,” and – like a dog you know! - I can practically _smell_ the bang of fear off them. It's something else they should be smelling off my words – bull-shit!

 

Mr. Scudder continues: “I _should_ , but I've no intention of intertwining myself with the bizzies even if I'm the one aiding. Go on, piss off, the lot of you -” and this is one rare instance where this order is met with grateful smiles and even pats on the arm. “Thanks Alec! You're a mate!”

 

“Don't fucking patronize me!! G'wan – GET!” Gun waves, all the good it do.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

 

 

 

“Ar-gen-ti-na, Here I come,

Right back where I started from..”

 

Jesus Christmas. The Honeychurch is more packed and wild and uproarious and noisy and festive than ever I seen it in many a year. I wonder if I shouldn't take this as an insult!

 

Nay, nay.. this is a celebration, for me, I know well, not of delight at seeing the back of me but of sending me off with the deepest affectionate good wishes and memories of my three-and-twenty years here... home.. England...

 

Walls within the tavern are wet with sweat and perspiration and spilled drink and God-knows what else; furniture is tipped over and pushed aside but there's no fighting, it's dancing, joshing, piano-ing, glasses clanking, voices calling and calloing and laughing, and everyone I've ever met or had anything to do with, near about, pushing more drinks on me than I'm able to hold, even if I were an octopus, and certainly more booze than my head can handle, already, and it only 10pm yet!!

 

Drank so much, knocked back so many whiskies from me uncles and their mates from the mines and the harvest fields, and the odd old school-master who didn't hate me totally, and the postman, and the milkman, and Mrs. Dempsey what used to walk me home from school along with her boys – oh, _everyone_ is keen to demonstrate their affection in liquid terms. Consequence, I've probably had about two bottles of the hard stuff so far and more beers than I would generally do in a week.

 

Still, might as well – who knows what sort of brew they have over in the tropics? Happen it's right foul altogether and I'll have to give up drinking, or send home for some. _Home_. There's that word again; every time it occurs to me mindful it's like a twist in my guts.

 

Beginning of the end, as they say. Last night here at home ( _hnngh_ ), then at dawn I'm to catch the coach to Portsmouth, and follow my kit onto the boat and away across the vast and titanic sea to those far-flung shores, thick with ominous jungle and all manner of unfamiliar ways foreign.. So naturally I'm spending my last hours on this fair isle rapidly taking leave of my senses, with drink after drink gulletted to no avail – head remains piercingly clear, unfuzzied, all too aware of my fate. Fuck!

 

Goodness. Oh I mean, I _do_ feel rather.. ostracized. Not deliberate, like; everyone's being extra nice to me, but do they not realize that that's the very thing that isolates me? Singles me out? A single man, that's what I am now, whereas up until now I felt very much part of the gang. Did I turf myself out, by going along with Freddy's emigration ideas, or was I _always_ somewhat freakish, below the surface, being, as it were – is – an anomaly, as I am, and I were merely play-acting like I were normal, right regular laddybuck, all the while harbouring these – what would the reverend say? Un-natural inclinations, right – which I kept right secret, only Davey might've twigged only he's true blue, and a handful of other fellas might have _con_ crete evidence of my strangeness, only they're anonymous to me and I to them. I don't really remember too many of my conquests – or my being conquested, for that matter. Only one stands out.

 

 

No, don't think on him. He was on me, now I've thrown him off. I have other fodder for my fits of melancholy! It's – England! It's – the folks, the familiar, the - the lads! Here they is, elbowing they's way over to me as I sit, me elbows barred, pride of place on the best, least-worn velvety stool in the establishment. Centrality required for to receive the many hand-wringings and back-slaps and hair ruffles and arm squeezes and cheek kisses that I've been obliging all evening. Maybe I should run against the squire in the elections!!

 

Hello – there, they've reached me, my troops; I watching them warily, not too sure how to act, or react, or relate.

 

“Scudder, me aul flower, so you're buggering off at last! Slow boat to China – eh? Not a minute too soon, hey lads!!” Kevin Kentish bashes my shoulder real hail-fellow, pumps my hand simultaneous; my ale goes everywhere but no matter, there'll be another.

 

“Finished that one already, are you? Let me buy you another – hey, Martha, my dear! A whiskey for the wayfaring stranger, here!” Oh God! Not another whiskey – it's beginning to get to me. Fluthered enough as it is, now, on the lagers, starting to become difficult to blink in unison – but needs must – must not appear ungrateful - “Obliged to you, Kevin,” and lifting it up and subtly sipping tiny.

 

Old Kev: “Ahh.. that's alright Alec. It's not every day we lose one of the finest fellers in the village... and it's not today neither!”

 

“Hoi!”

 

Kevin – Divine, this time – shakes his head. “You _are_ a jammy sod, Alec. Wisht _I_ were going away to make piles of money and see the world!” Big blue eyes dreamy, he glows at me and I suddenly feel, not for the first time lately, as ancient as Methuselah and as out of the loop as old Rip Van Winkle. Petey blows his lips out derisive and I respond, a bit arch, “Well, there's nothing keeping you here, is there? No more than me.”

 

The Little Divine: “Oh, well, only Ma has only just set the conkers round the back garden and she says I can't leave until they's horse chestnuts enough to shade the cottage.” I can see Davey laughing into his pint; he's been floating peripheral to me all night and I'm a-wondering what he's got tucked up his sleeve.

 

Larry-Tom: “Will your Ma let you leave the house for two whole days, Kevvie, when we's going down on the Tees? You better had, you're the one bringing the best of the fishing rods!”

 

Kevvie: “Yeh, she's going to be alright about that, on account of I told her I were going to visit my cousin Edward and help him with a round-up. S'matter of fact, it wouldn't take but an afternoon, I were thinking, the lot of us could go, Monday, after we's finished messing about on the river -”

 

Petey: “Not even _close_ , son! No way am I going to ruin my hangover by chasing sheep about a mountain! I intend to spend the recovery period sleeping and cutting the cheese!”

 

Kevin Kentish: “Ha! Ha! Me and all! No fucking fear, Kevin!”

 

Cheese and crackers got all muddy... I slump over the bar while the others bicker over the minutiae of their upcoming weekend jaunt and I think about how I would like roughly ten more whiskies.

 

“... me as you, Alec, I'm sure there'll be just as much larks in the Argentine, aye?” Voice floating over in my direction, Davey, intervening as he do, trying to be kind, privately I'm dying; publicly I must try, but I – I, flustered, I - “I can't find my coat. I left it in my room, or in.. the room upstairs at home – er, at the butchers..” And stammering, stupidly, slipping off the stool I squeeze and slide through the surging swarm of people to stumble into the doorway of the snug, and Sally's sweet a-waiting arms.

 

Warm hands on my forearms, warm wet eyes, warm voice over the din: “How are you, my love?” Before I have the chance to reply honestly, she barrels on, eyes shining as she looks out the stained-glass window at the dying daylight and the nascenting nighttime, “Oh, how ex _cite_ d you must be! Isn't it just unbearable!” Yes, Sally, that about covers it. Yet here I must bear.

 

“I mean.. the opportunities we have nowadays – not just boys like you -all of us. Don't have to stay here, toiling away, don't _have_ to get married, there are alternatives, new perspectives..”

 

Boy like Alec: “Oh, aye?”

 

Sally, furtive but decisive: “That's right, Alec. In fact to tell you a secret..” and she beckons me over and I lurch forward a little too eager and too intimate, and she laughingly steadies my shoulder, “ _I'm_ going to do it too. I'm going to Go Away and in for this emigration lark like everyone fashy is doing!” Here she pokes the shoulder she'd been holding. “And before you ask, no, _not_ to land a husband!”

 

Alec: “Well, what will you do in that case?”

 

Sally: “I shall be self-sufficient and independent. After all – I don't want children.”

  
Boggling, agog, Alec: “You don't?!”

 

Sal, suddenly seeming cruel, dismissive: “Oh my land, no. Had so much experience nannying in my time, put me right off, to be truthful. From what I heared too, there's not likely to be too many babies up at _Penge_ anytime soon, you know, old Anne and Clive..!”

 

My heart beats like a drum in a marching band. “I-is that right..”

 

Sal, musing, meandering – I have a soul sister in her, it's clear: “Oh, I'll stay domestic, in Canada. But I hear there is better pay, more freedom, nicer conditions, less oppressive class restrictions over in the Americas.”

 

Alec: “Yeh. Real Land of Hope and Glory.”

 

Sal giggles. “That's Britain, but yes, hope indeed.. things are so exciting over across the Atlantic right now, if you read the papers, the novels, the Baedekers!”

 

Alec, summoning up his moody: “Can't say that I do.”

 

Sally: “Well, a sight more scope for betterment than the likes of us are liable to get _here_. England for the old, the backward, the crumbling establishment.” I glower at her, her sickly excitement and American adulation; wondering unkindly if I bestowed upon her more credit for intelligence than she actually merits, because of her musical voice and shining hair and dusty freckles and dainty wrists.

 

But I know I'm the fool.

 

Cop on to yourself, Alec! I rummage and rustle: “Yes – you're spot-on, Sally love, just the words. I mean.. if you're not happy and content in a place.. you're not happy and content in a place! It's as simple as that. Can't rot away our lives static now can we?”

 

Happily, almost manically, she: “Yes, _yes,_ Alec! We stay here – we're likely to just go on the same sodding way we've been doing forever!”

 

Alec: “Not if you ring the changes thy'sel.” Surprising both of us with this emission, Sal jumps on the point and rides it: “Exactly! Like we're doing – pastures new, striking out on our own, seeking our fort – oh, are you quite alright?” Alec slumps against the door frame leaking energy.

 

Smiling, knowing, she squeezes an arm. “We'll write, won't we? We'll stay friends?” Alec nods dumbly. Continuing: “We can keep in contact through our families, yours in Osmington, right? I shall pick up your new address abroad when you're settled, and I can send you mine, from Canada, just think, so many miles apart on the brand-new continents..” Alec's ears feel full of cotton-wool.

 

Like the last bit of toothpaste out the tube, I squeeze through the throng towards the front of the pub, being gently but ribcage-crushingly deposited on the front porch, betwixt the two plant pot ferns dotted white with fag-ends.

 

“There's the man of the hour! I was hoping to get a hold of you tonight in order to give you some farewell tidings, though if it meant entering into this... place... Now. Young Scudder. Let me look at you! Stand up straight, there's a lad – yes, a fine cut of a man you'll make, once you've a few months proper living under your belt and a taste for that true independence. The English grit will see you far – to the very end! Now, be sure and remember your old home, your parents – establish yourself as a good prospect and you'll be in a fine position to look after not only your wife, children, but your family back home too, after all the gold is flowing in the furtherest reaches of the Empire at the moment, however catawampus _that_ is, given the abject poverty that exists right here in the Centre... But! Be that as it may. You're on the up, the ascent of your career, Alec, and don't you forget to feel constantly grateful to Our Lord about it and humble in receipt of all he gives us! Now I'll wring your hand – there's a good lad, don't worry on your parents, I'll see to them after your departure on the docks... Now, before you start, don't object, of _course_ I'll be there tomorrow morning to see you off, it's no trouble at all.. Well, I'll miss the beginning of a sermon on the Modern Application of the Beatitudes a friend of mine is giving in Burnopfield, but.. a parishioner’s needs must... I'll bring you an extra Bible... See you get a good night's sleep now after you've finished all your good-byes here!”

 

Reeling, mouth agog-goldfish-like, eyebrows knitted into a veritable jumper and sweat pumping steady at the sudden crashing weight of all this impending responsibility, of people relying on all this money that's not even earned, of course Our Good Lord rewards me after this onslaught with Freddy swooping out of the pub and arm-swung, scooping me doorwards.

 

Fred: “Now now, youngstrel, you can't escape yet! Good thing I thought to look for you out there, you almost missed my speech!” I moan into the abyss, heard by no-one over the din.

 

Ushered into a chair of pink-cheeked prime position right beside Fred's 'stage': an old door balanced on three barrels, I affix a tight smile up at my brother, what a ham, a mugger, a real theatre Charlie, as he shushes the crowd, looking pointed at the pianist who stops abruptly, and thusly satisfied and spotlighted, Fred's away.

 

“Ladies and Gentlemen! Friends, neighbours, well-wishers and mere confused but benevolent frequent drinkers.”

 

A smattering of (drunken!) laughter.

 

“We are packed in here today to wish all the best to one very distinguished little sod: my little bother, Alec George Scudder, the first – first of many!”

 

Flush and smile, show teeth even, as there's cheers and whoops and clappings. Headache's forming at the nape of my neck already.

 

Warming: “What an undertaking – the Argentine. What an opportunity – what an adventure! Of course, it's daunting – nay, not that I'm saying you're _scared,_ Licky- far from it – sure he's been bouncing off the walls with excitement for weeks now, I swear the plastering you've left the pater to be doing!” More gales of mirth.

 

Bouncing... A slight exaggeration. And I wonder if Fred is that wooly-headed, or is he deliberately impressing upon me that far from buzzing with youthful hope and exuberance, I have in fact been devoting my sapping energies more towards moping round the house like a wet weekend.. surely _someone_ must have noticed how cut up I am?

 

Not Freddy! “However, some assurance and good tidings for your future might be just the ticket, if you'll indulge..!” I suppose we must.

 

Old Fred: “Amazing as it may seem to all, but once _I_ was in the same position, about to embark upon my futures abroad: young, naïve, unrefined, not a brain cell in my head firing on any or all pistons.”

 

Alec: “Hey!”

 

Ignoring: “But as soon as I went out to make my way in the world – that is to say, went away foreign, bringing that youthful vigour and hard-won love of labour to my position, trading in that innocence for experience – well, that made a man of me and it’s a tradition we’ll continue in this family tonight and going forward. The effect is instant – now hear ye, what little Fred Scudder observed, wide-eyed, when first he sprang from the nest.” Fred don’t half get poetic when he’s in his cups.

 

Keeping his balance careful on the door, Fred proceeds to make much ado about removing an envelope from inside his coat, then a letter out of that, flapped open. Curious crowd lowers its volume of chatter even further and I lean back, arms crossed, mouth quirking despite all. _Here_ we go.

 

“Ahem. ‘Dear Mother, I’m taking a pen in my hand..’” Cheering and guffawing drown him out for a bit so he waits; more respectable sorts who’ve heard this tooraloo many’s a time before shush the youngsters down.

 

“‘I am writing to you here from my new digs in the village what they sent me to when I finally got through all the health checks and shake-downs. It was right frightful at first but needs doing of course and now I am well on my way to starting my new position, 5am Monday morning and Ma would you ever be proud – three stories the office building has and I’m up at the very top, in the attic – the room next to it even has a window with a view to the church you can see on the days it isn’t fuggy! I’ve been told by my supervisor, who’s taken a right shine one me and say’s I’m sharp as a button that in if I keep my good attitude and start as I mean to go on, why, in ten years I might be able to afford to get married! Ain’t it a thing to think on – a wife! And of course once I’m being paid I’ll take full responsibility for keeping yourselves at home in comforts too, you can rely on me, now don’t even mention it – it’s a son’s natural duty after all.

 

‘Ours digs is right lovely too and all, I’m in a room of my own with seven other clerks only, we get to share a sink and everything, it’s sure to be right companionable. As to the village, it’s main exotic, you see the natives in the distance frequent outside the city gates, it’s right exciting, sometimes you’ll even have one serving you in a shop! I feel like Christopher Columbus!

 

‘As to the people, well it’s been awful welcoming and warm here – not just the weather, ha! Ha! – all of us ex-pats, all helping one another, it’s like a little parcel of Britain here and I’ve not felt the slightest bit homesick though of course I am thinking of you all at home and receiving your well-wishes with gratitude..’”

 

Twisting my mouth a little, eyebrows gliding up, I gaze sidewards at Fred suspicious; in fact I remember this first letter home of his, from years ago when I were still a wee slip of a lad in short pants (I’d a growth spurt that got me main excited but it took a break and never came back to work), and this don’t sound like what _I_ remember.

 

In fact as far as I can make out in my memory, Freddy’s first letter was the cause of some measure of agitation, bother, consternation and distress in the Scudder household; the principal point being a heartfelt wail not only for the comforts of home, amidst the ‘rabble’ of natives and the squirts the food gave him and the sun cooking the skin off his face.. Rounding off with a plea for money as it was far too easy, he hadn’t been warned, to spend it rather than save it. Quite the kerfuffle it caused I tell thee!

 

Carrying on: “Please don’t worry on me and give my love to young Licky; he’ll stop missing me as much and crying at night eventually and if not surely a tickle with the belt will soon sort him out. I would also add that he would do well, at his age, to retire from picking his nose; it gives him rather a gormless aspect which he in any case doesn’t have any need for. Your humble and obedient son, Frederick.”

 

“For fuck’s _sake_!!” I bellow while Kevin Kentish bleats with laughter beside me and on t’other side, Petey slides slowly down the bar to the floor, crying with happiness as, hammy, I further verbalize my outrage, impotent fists shaking.

 

Taking advantage of the crowd's focus, Davey climbs drunkenly onto a stool, then a barrel, then the bar. Attention diverts to him, and to me, though he's at the end near the flap and I'm lurking in the corner. Nerves blossom instant all over me, through me, and I search vainly for a bit of remaining nail to chew on, each finger tried and discarded, eyes fixed on him. _He's_ the one who could cut me to the quick, that's blatant.

 

“Thanks very much, Steady Freddy... good man yourself! Now! Now. Lads and lassies! Ladies and gentle – well, we've a-none of _those_ here..!”

 

More's the pity!

 

Davey, riveting his audience: “But, now really – distinguished revellers, friends, loved ones and lost ones. Some _respectful_ silence, please -” This actually works! “As we gather here today to mourn and fondly remember, to grieve and grouse over our good friend, the dearly darling yet late and lamented Alec G. Scudder, now sadly departed -”

 

Alec, for maybe the tenth time tonight: “HOI!!”

 

Davey: “ _from these shores_ , but never, of course, from our hearts. Gone before his time, in his prime, I'm sure if Old Licky were with us today he'd be as touched, as thankful, as grateful for the blessings in his short life -”

 

Alec, tugging main aggressive on Davey's arm, but he won't be dislodged: “Davey, you prick on a stick! I'm not dead _yet_!” Huge uproar, laughter, mighty din as I pull fierce-like on his trouser-leg, I'm dragged away and pushed back into my seat panting petulant, glaring at him up through my fringe – that _bugger_!

 

Davey: “Ha! Ha! Alright, alright son,” - I'm red-faced, tousle-haired, almost in tears – he hunkers over and ruffles my locks, knocking off my cap I've pulled on for an obstinate affectation to leave.

 

D: “Joking aside, everyone, no codding, for this is anything _but_ a time of joy and celebration – except for you, of course, Alec, what's ahead of you..” Kind eyes, pulls my cap down over my face and stands up abrupt.

 

D: “So a toast! To my best friend and beloved Alec, good luck and God bless for all the future and embrace what awaits you!!” Glass thrust rafterward.

 

Cheers and whoops and smatterings, _clatterings_ of applause follow and the world turns upside down as I'm hooked by fingers a-many and flung bodily into the clammy air ONE and a-TWO and a-THREE and a-FOUR my drink flying out of my hand and my stomach left somewhere halfway to the ceiling. From my apex I see Davey signalling the pianist in the corner; then he's away in that beautiful tragic tenor of his.

 

“Farewell to you, me own true love,

I am going fa-ar away,

I am bound for Argen-ti-ni-ay

And I know that I'll return, someday....”

 

My stomach finds me again and I know I'm about to splatter its contents. Davey's voice is joined by the swell of the crowd, like a heavenly host.

 

“So fare-thee-well my own true love,

And when I return united we will be..”

 

Frantic, elbowing, kneeing, headering through the packed pub, racing outside to the shock of cold air, over the cobbles to the hedgerow that lines the Market Yard, pitching forward – oh God -

* HACK * * COUGH*

 

“It's not the leaving of Liverpool

that griiiiiiieves me,

But my darling when I think of thee.”

 

Who am I? Nothing seems familiar no more. A hand raised trembling to a freshly-shaved face, a wobbling, distraught mouth is wiped of sick and tears, and knees hit hard ground as I clutch, clutch the drinking-trough and struggle to breathe normal; it's only the nausea that keeps me cringing in pain instead of weeping, weeping.

 


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

 

 

 

Wandering woods way... somewhere's I feel more comfortable, in among the trees and bushes and reeds and moss... grass and leaves and bark underfoot, clear cold air goes straight to your mind. That'll go some way; that might boost and bolster. Turning and twisting from the hooting, cackling, shouting, singing, stinging pub I bother the glass in my hand, wide-eyed, worried, wobbley-mouthed. Wobbley walkings too, so don't I just match up well!

 

As I walk down Victoria Street, there's people a-setting on the window-ledges, with no care for the owners of the houses, congregating on lawns, trampling on flowers – aye, this is what comes with living in the busy bustle of the village!

 

Mam is main glad _our_ begonias are no-where near any of the rougher pubs ( _I'm_ less grateful of a 3-a-m walk homeward); we face the little meadow besides the church. Think the stones in may be grassy, overgrown, unmarked (or formerly marked) graves.. give me the willies they do at night!

 

Happen I'm going the other direction tonight anyway. Cottage and the butchers making me right listless and chokey in the throat just at the moment; trying to distract myself from high emotion for a bit – just walking.

 

Although this was, ostensible, a main mighty knees-up for to say Goodbye, Farewell and Amen to local boy Alec Scudder, no-one marks the Guest of Honour making his fumbley way away from the festivities, because alcohol has taken its firm collective grasp on the parish entire, it looks like!

 

It's not all well-wishing on my part; lion's share of the village would use _any_ excuse to go out and get themsel' well-oiled: emigration's just one and getting more common, but weddings, christenings, funerals, any time the King does something of significance, spring, summer, Christmas, end of a war (back when there still was wars), homecomings, births, harvests, football matches – you name it and it'll get a drink thrust high and then direct down the gullet fast as winking!

 

I know, as I've partook myself many's and many's a time in my time: never been the centre of a Celebration till now and to be honest, I never thought I _would_ be, not being the marrying, nor the fathering, kind.

 

Davey has a point – a horrible gutting sharp one – this _does_ feel more like a funeral, a wake, like I'm dying rather being born anew somewhere fresh and open.

 

Leaving my glass half-full on someone's little garden wall, I tip forward a bit, spin round desperate, looking at the life I'm leaving behind me, loud and joyous and comforting and cosseting. Unnoticed I stumble to the stile besides the village welcoming sign and, climbing over it, hedgerow brushing my clothes, I disappear into the dark woods, the trail I know off by heart, no seeing-eyes needed.

 

Moon is high in the sky, like a giant silver sovereign coin, by the time I emerge, heaving heavy, sweating, leg muscles screaming with having taken the rough road, and I part the bushes wi'me hands to lead into the clear front lawn of Penge. Sobers me right up, that – sight of it.

 

Sucking in huge nosefuls of that clear, damp air, I gaze over at the bloody place, the Big House, almost entirely in darkness, save for lights twinkling here and there in windows where I know what's happening: whatever servants what didn't get to go down to the village this eve past are – likely sulkily – attending to their pre-dawn duties. Preparing the stove for lighting, laying out the fresh candles, sweeping away the day before, as it were – such like. I shrug my shoulders repeated in order to relive the strain but they just pain me more.

 

To think: to think. Couple of weeks ago – _couple of weeks only –_ well, I couldn't wait to see the back of this place! And near everyone in it! At least, that's what I swaggered about a- _saying_. But now what. Now what, Alec lad.

 

You've been gifted. That's why this is so hard, choosin', because each outcome, in its own very particular way, is so reet tempting.

 

Hands in the pockets of my cords, kicking the odd stone, walking in circles, snapping the odd twig, kicking the odd dandelion clock, saying the odd (odd) word aloud into the forest, I tackle some determined self-persuasion.

 

Alec: “Lookit lad, you've had _some_ larks, now haven't you? Some larks. And mighty fun they've been too – you could just about drown down in the muddy happiness of it all. But there's the kicker – see? That's what it amounts to – drowning, sinking, without even kicking – down into – well, _you_ heard the reverend – down into _sin_. Because it weren't right, now were it? _Any_ of your'n dallying. Weren't good nor proper, for anyone involved.

 

“And sure – that never used to bother you. Sin. Righteousness. Standing-up-ness. For the birds, weren't it? For the toffs, the quality, the ones people actually look up to and admire. For Freddy, whose moral compass don't swivel never, points always north, towards Neeta, his position, his neatly-pressed ideals. For my folks, who were born to marry each other. Just not for _you_ , right? You were the devilish wee boyo, weren't you, everyone said so right fond and so you _acted_ so, and saw no reason to change when you was no longer a boy, but a man, a man, yeh, but yet resisting every thrust and drag into manhood, into age, into the yawning chasm of Doing Things and then Dying.

 

“Instead, you had fun. But it had to be paid for. You put that thought on the long finger, though, until now, when you can feel your sin, your folly, your shame and record of bad behaviour a-creeping over you evident, obvious, like rainwater and grassy dew slowly trickling from the ground up shoes, socks, pant-legs, moving closer leaving you dark and damp and uncomfy. At your age, son, you're starting to become embarrassing.”

 

But now. _Now_ look, now. A gift. A chance, a golden opportunity to wipe the slate clean, as they say. Go forward a brand-new man, leave behind all my mistakes and idiocy and re-create myself wholesale into a fine, strong, decent grafter of a cove who can stand besides Freddy and reduce Ma and Pa right down tearful as they read my letters home detailing wonderful adventures, rising fortunes, rightful respect for Their Lad Alec, local boy Done Good at long last...

 

Nibbling on a bit of hangnail I get to wondering: if someone _were_ to meet me in Argentina, to lead me down the gangway of the _Nor_ _mann_ _ia_ with they's – ledger in hand, and they: “Pleased to greet you, Mister... Scudder! Of course we have been expecting you, sir and everything is right and ready for you. Here is your new suit sir – I hope it will suit! And here – (dropping heavy into my hands) – are the papers, documents, letters and accounts relevant to your _prime_ position in the Ever-Expanding Exporting biz alongside your good brother Frederick. Here are the keys to your home – the rent is very fair and reasonable, as long as you get promoted before the year is out! Har har as I'm sure you will be, intelligent boy. Fine boy. Fine, manly little fellow like yourself. Now might want to run along and kiss your wife and children good-bye before you head to the office, they might well be in bed, bless them, by the time you get away home...”

 

_Home_ , oh the incongruity!

 

That's the word that jars, it don't belong in this imagining.

 

God help me, Penge, this rambling old shithole, the pains it's put me through, but still, it feels more like home than any dreams of the Argentine – pictures of which Freddy has brung and shown all of us, and in the past month I've taken them down from besides the mirror mantel in the front room, and I stared at the tropical trees, the strange shaped flat roofed houses, the burnt and grinning 'Brits', their bright loose and no doubt sweaty clothes.

 

The flies – well, we have those here too, I don't want to pick holes where there aren't any. Though that reminds me – Fred brung me some special insect-netting and instructed me careful on how to drape it around me bed at night just so – and to check it for holes on the reg. I accepted this and affected extreme indifference, perhaps even threw in a sneer, as is my general demeanour, but it bodes ill, if I'm honest with you.

 

Dasen't _ask_! Say what you will about the pests in this country, the vermin and the minibeasts, they don't do you no harm. Well – apart from that time I fell through that big skite of hay-bales and ended up disturbing a wasps' nest – well the howling out of me would have raised the dead, and I was gone like the clappers with the wasps in me wake! All the other lads wi'me thinking I'd seen a ghost and they took to screaming and crying and carrying on too. Ha, ha, my land! No loss on me, mind you...

 

Shaking my head with the rememberin' of it. Pace around the whole generous perimeter of Penge, what might be for the last time – I might come over all misty-eyed and melancholic afore I know myself! Sticking my hands in my pocks, explorative, thinking on the comfort of a fag, my fingers brush against a few folded papers, unusual for me to have on my person, but I know what they be, a few papers and things I kep' in the top drawer of my bedside locker for to have them handy for my journey and also to remind me of it – everything – the future – coming up. Which used to be a reet welcome and exciting reminding.

 

First paper I extract I unfold and recognize immediate – the old _No_ _rmann_ _ia_ , surely coming into dock as we speak, well, as _I_ speak, well, as I ramble to mysel'.

 

It's a pamphlet.

 

“ _S.S. No_ _rmanni_ _a_ , Southampton to the Americas, Aug 29, 1913, Britannic, Celtic, Germanic, Adriatic, Baltic, Republic, Oceanic, Gaelic, Belgic....”

 

“Salon Passage 15, 18, and 21 Guineas Each Berth (mine is none of these, just for your knowings),

STEERAGE FARE (yep, that's more like it), £6:6:0 Six Guineas, including a plentiful supply of cooked Provisions..” Mm.. not a patch on Ma's cookings, nor Mrs. D's at Penge, but that's a bit fussy..

 

“Passengers, before embarking, have to provide themselves with Plate, Mug, Knife, Fork, Spoon, Bedding – all of which can be purchased on shore for a few shillings.

 

“Berths – all persons over eight years old is provided with a separate berth to sleep in. Married Couples with their Children are Berthed together; Single Women are berthed together by themselves.” (No mention of Single Men! Though am I one of them any-more, someone in Love with me!!)

 

“The Steerages in these Steamers are unusually spacious, well-lighted, ventilated, and warmed, and passengers of this class will find their comfort carefully studied, and the provisioning unsurpassed...” Sure we will, on account of the fact that we knows no other boat-age, knows no better! What really gets to me is 'unusually good ventilation' – I know what that means, it's referrin' to wide open spaces – or lack of. I dunno if I could bear it – being on a cramped, smelly, closed-in, internal, interior, inescapable indoors for weeks on end – not a wood nor a field nor a single tree or growing blade of grass in reach or sight - ! I'm so used to the outdoors is all I don't rightly know if I'd step off the boat in the Argentine the same old Alec we all know and love!!

 

I fold the flyer up haphazard and stuff it back in me pocket – it used to a'flame such anticipation and dreamings and plannings in me. Not now. I think I've experienced the best of what I will ever in my life and it's all downhill from here.

 

As I shove the folded paper down as far as I can in me pocket, I come across the other bit of lit that I have stowed in there handy. Pulling out – what's this? A rich cream envelope – oh, yes, I recognize this and all. My references from Penge – Ma must have put them here safe, so's I can have them to hand, a testament to my respectability – well, workability – the instant I set sandy foot in South America.

 

Turning it over, I run a finger over the green wax seal, before sneaking the same finger under the flap of the envelope and – why not? - breaking it open.

Shaking:

 

'To Whom it May Concern,

 

This document is in the interest of providing references for:

 

EMPLOYEE NAME: Alec Scudder

Osmington

POSITION: Under-gamekeeper

whose duties included:

\- Cultivation of legal game, during allotted seasons;

\- Providing assistance to the maintenance of the grounds of the Penge Estate, Wilts, and light duties around the manor and woodlands.

 

Candidate was fairly adept in providing the unskilled labour required for the role, at least initially, although execution of many duties were rather slapdash, and both time-keeping and dedication to the tasks were somewhat lacking.

Candidate is however young and strong and unusually bright, considering, and could be an asset to any role in a non-professional capacity, providing he has the onus to work hard and show willing.

 

Signed

 

Cllr. Clive Durham Esq.,

Penge Estate,

Penge,

Wiltshire,

GREAT BRITAIN'

 

...Well. Well!! If my Mum were here right now, she'd gimme: “By ' _eck_ , Alec lad, your face is a picture! Could curdle milk, that!”

 

Yes, I'm sure it could, seeing as how it feels like I've been slapped with a dead fish!

 

I ask you!! 'Light duties' – 'unskilled' – 'slapdash' – whatever the hell _that_ means, but it doesn't sound much good.. 'somewhat lacking' – he may as well quit with the coyness and proclaim me the official village idiot! And this 'brightness' – well, that compliment he has fairly diluted back to so much weak water. Christ, if the best that can be said for me is that I'm young and strong then I am in trouble. For many's a man, both here and abroad, is the very same and better, and besides with these are attributes I won't have forever. Mind you, labouring is what I were made for, let's call a spade a spade here.

 

I never did do a bundle at school-work so I imagine I'd be just as incompetent when it came to working in some office or other; I _do_ help Dad out with the filings and accounts at the shop but sure that's not difficult: order the stock in, chop it, measure it, weight it, price it, slap it on the shelves and in the ice-chests or up on the hooks, sell it, try and make a profit doing so and Bob's your uncle!

 

My winding steps have led me away from the house, from the manicured lawns, and I brush softly past the swaying grasses on the edge of the woods, the dock leaves, ferns, nettles, flowers all closed-up and sleeping for the night. I tell thee, if I were to come across the fox – or family of foxes – what's been right craftily pinching the chickens from the cook's wee yard on a weekly basis, for sure tonight I wouldnae tail him, wouldnae blame him, in fact I should go right up to him, shake his hand – foot, er, paw – and say, “You're dead right, my man! Go a-bloody head and eat every chicken in this place you can find – _I_ won't be keeping you! Let them think of something else to have for Sunday lunch – let Durham him _sel_ come out here and see how 'unskilled' an undertaking it is to shoot down and bring in enough ducks, or rabbits, or pigeons, grouse, _deer_ – fuckers, then we'll see! Oh yes we shall!”

 

Oh, whoops: those last few words I've spoken – but not roared! - aloud, and I stop my hand over my mouth to try and stop myself being crazy, and try and still my heart. Just in -

 

Voices!! Is it? Yes there are – over by the walled-in garden, only – not within in it, no, more like coming from round the ivy-covered side of it – I freeze and listen as attentive as the beagles when they hear the biscuit-tin opening: ears all a-pricking, nary a trembling whisker. Twigs snap and leaves on trees or grass on weirs are gently pushed aside... a laugh. A _girl's_ laugh, lovely and lyrical.

 

Girls always sound like they's trying, helpless, to say something when they're a-giggling and snorting and chortling. Used to make a fella right confused and bruised at school, when you'd try to strike up a bit of conversation with a lassie, and all you got in reply were gales of laughter. Only for her friend or neighbour or cousin to tell you subsequent: “Oh Alec, she's just _mad_ about you!! Did you see how red she went? Couldn't even get a word out!”

 

That was then however; I can banter with the best of them now and I know my way around a woman to boot. Happen I recognize -

 

Yeh, there's a feller there too, low voice interchanging with the girl's, coming louder, closer, nearer – shit!

 

Shit, fuck, bollocks anyway! I don't want to be rumbled, not while my mind's all in a muddle and my face _might_ just be red and teary – with – with _anger,_ mind, at – at Durham, he's, he's some ball of twine I tell thee!

 

Panting and hurrying, but trying to be as sneaky as possible, swimming through the overgrown forest, even as I bite back a swear with my teeth when a briar rips my hand in the dark, and I bash my knee on a moss-covered, low stone wall way the hell in the middle of the growings, which at least tells me I'm on my way to somewhere I can hide, and I reach a mercifully-moonlit stone arch, four walls surrounded by trees and with a gate in the doorway, knotted wholesale by yet more briars, and I push the hanging vines aside and crouch down in the folly on me hunkers, a shaft of that moonlight falling through the high narrow window onto the crunchy, gravelly ground beside my feet. Wriggling round to get comfortable, thus ensconced in the shadow of the tower walls, I palm the smooth, dampish stone wall I'm leaning against, get my bearings.

 

“Come!”

 

“Come on!”

 

“I _am_ doing – Jaysus, but you're full of energy tonight!”

 

* Pant Pant *

 

“Let's rest then.. here, this stump isn't _too_ damp..”

 

“Ha? I'll get piles in me arse if I sit about on damp walls – me dad told me.”

 

“You'll just have to sit in my lap then, won't you?”

 

I have to stuff my knuckle in my mouth for wheezing at Sally's daring – Davey is similarly tickled but un-similarly unrestrained!

 

“HA! HA! HA! HA! And what if I took you up on that, eh old gal?”

 

“Just you try it – _hey_!” Sounds of crashing into the undergrowth, a-panting and a roaring and stumbling, the pair of them clearly having their own private wrestling match. I chew on a wisp and shake my head, folding my arms wi'me hands tucked into my oxters.

 

Davey: “Sorry Sal.. I didn't hurt you?”

 

Sal: “Naw, Davey, didn't I throw my _sel'_ into the mossbank? I'll look a terrible state though, covered in grass seeds, look..”

 

D: “You look right elegant. Prettiest girl at the party.”

 

S: “Ha ha hm.. well. A rum night, weren't it? All that singing! And who was paying for all those drinks? I dunno but they kept being handed!”

 

D: “Oh, Durham.. wouldn't descend to attend, but he put a bit behind the bar for to say that he's 'sponsoring' a servant who's bettering themselves. The old _noblesse oblige_ , don't you know...”

 

S: “Poor old Alec... the only way is up for him I'm afeared!”

 

Chewing my wisp into a cud, I stretch out my legs and cross 'em at the ankles, tip my head back against the stone wall... Now, now, Sally!

 

S: “I do hope he makes something of himself in Argentina!”

 

_That's_ better.

 

S, continuing: “Though he's got a lot of growing up to do.”

 

I push out my lower lip murderous petulant. How often have I been hearing that refrain! Only getting more repeatitious the older I get..

 

Davey, swooping in saving: “Oh, Licky will cop on to himself eventually.. Hardy as a wild duck, that lad! Heading off abroad and leaving all this behind will be the making of him – brand new start, sunny weather, sure it'll be famous altogether!”

 

I consider covering my ears but end up rubbing my temples, eyes pinched. Davey, you're supposed to be on _my_ side – but there again, how could you possibly understand...

 

S: “Better get back.. we'll be missed...”

 

D: “Is there such a hurry on you?”

 

Peculiar, acute quiet.

 

S: “Ah, hey...”

 

D: “Sal... C'mon..”

 

S: “Now, Davey, I've told you before, it's just not practical between us!”

 

D: “Good! I'm glad you agree. Practical – not how I'd describe it. How I feel on you..”

 

S: “ Mmm.. mmm.. oh... But you have to look logical! The real point is, that there is the widest gulf between my love-making and yours. Yours was romance; mine will be prose. I tell you, I mean to go away...”

 

D: “Not go away.  _Come_ away, with me.”

 

S: “Oh Daniel...”

 

There's my cue to leave. To go – I don't rightly know where, but to leave them to it. 

 

Lots of growing up yet to do! When I feel older than ever I done – suppose I  _am_ as old as ever I was. Never been so aware of it. Shaking off those feelings, no, that won't work – better run – just run - 

 

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

 

 

 

You have a choice.

 

I – it's something that didn't actually occur to me, funny that, till Davey mentioned it, pressed it home, me being so used to following orders and coasting along with the general trend – at school, home, up at work, with the lasses. The lads. Do what's usual – the easy path; but it's not the _only_ one.

 

You have a choice.

 

Many's a one doesn't: well, bully for 'em! Why should _I_ join the Christian Martyrs? Years to come, no-one'll give me a medal for emigrating, like thousands of others done before and after old Alec. It only seems important _now_ ; but in the grand scheme, sort of thing, take it all around, who's going to care that I went away, made a pittance, sent letters home, got a hot tan and eventually collapse from sunstroke and expire amongst the lush rainforests, lizards, natives, and most probably eighteen kids and a wore-out wife?

 

I know who'd care. If he still... '“I'd have blown out my brains..”' ... He's a passionate one, alright. But it isn't too late.

 

You have a choice.

 

Here _is_ a change to distinguish myself. With him, I feel right singular, highly, un-replaceable. Yes he'll have other loves, look at him; listen, that voice, those honeyed tones... He'll come into the man he's supposed to be, confidence. But – I get a sick reflux in my throat when I worry that some cad of a feller might have him, use him, not realize nor care just how very precious he is. I groan in pain and frustration and confusion.

 

More than one door is open, there's more than one way through the woods. Come on, Alec, you know what you'd prefer.

 

You have a choice. He made his, and it's you, it's me.

 

Night in London, pure shenanigans, then that old Argentine... for a god-speed, one last mad embrace; whew, that massive Atlantic, the long road then, unlit by your faint smile....

 

Naw, naw now... faint? No. Last? Ha! Long – yes, long lasting – the two of us, clasped, connected, fitted, frantic, devoted and determined, together – or bust!


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

 

 

 

Ah! Come _on_ , sun, up with you, up with you! Why is it on days when I want to loll around in bed till noon – usually after a night on the tiles – the sun _shoots_ up from behind the forest at the end of the Eastern Glen – and yet today, of all days, when I've spent the night a-wandering round the Penge hazel-wood pacing round in circles, muttering, planning, deliberating, doubting, Damnation!! - waiting for the morning to hasten, to cement my decision, when it doesn't come, it's languid, lazy, and me in the star-light filtering through the dewy swaying tree-leaves with no way of telling the time.

 

Time. Very important, that. If I'm going to do this – yes, yes, I'm going to, it's decided – then I have to get the timing right, that is to say, I need as much of it today, more'n usual, as possible. I won't be able to face this without him wi'me.

 

Now lurking (for a change) in the bushes by the Town Hall, in the dark, likely covered in dirt from my wanderings, like a criminal I hunch, watch, wild-eyed, fingernails quicked, for any sign of life to flicker in the village – the Post Office to be particular.

 

Knocking on the moonlit door were to no bleedy avail. And so we wait.. sly and steady... patient as the -

 

OH COME ON!! _Somebody_ , someone get up! I have business to attend to! Shit to do! Got to do this before me nerves desert me – before I bottle it. But I can't, I can't – I must I must – my knees ache as I'm down on me hunkers doing my surveillance of the tomb-like silent Prichard House and British Mail, Osmington branch. Don't want to sit down, want to be ready to spring into action soon's I can see any twitch of movement that'd herald the beginning of the work-day.

 

I'm tense and wired and ready as a soldier gone behind enemy lines. Isn't that what I – OH! That something?

 

“Show me the way to go hooome...” Shuffling boot-soles, tumbling gait - “I'm tired and I want to go to bed..” _There's_ the bastard – oh fuckery! _That's_ why the Post Office weren't open at the crack as it is usual – Greg'ry's been out all night like a right bold wee lad! His father oughter tan his hide – arter _I'm_ done with him! Probably wandering round since my own send-off at the Honeychurch... well.. can it be described as a send-off anymore? Yes, only the destination has been altered a bit...

 

Weaving idiot! He must've been home some stage though? Or someone's home. He has a bit of toast in his hand and lines on his face that indicate a rumpled, unpillowed slumber – I should know. I'm glad it's him I've run into and not his aul lady, old Lady Greg'ry, she's a right wagon, though keeps the shop running like a top – _usually_. Until I want its services, of course!

 

Though if it came to that – if I had to let myself into the house and up them stairs and poke the old dear down into the office in her curlers, I would've – my mind's made up and that's final!

 

Yes – my mind is a monument of decision. No question. Well lots of questions. But I shan't attempt to answer them. Now. Yet. Or ever. Maybe. Action! That's what's called for – I'll be grand as long as I keep thundering forward and don't stop to think, to reflect, to remember – it's time for animation and oomph, I've been denying this for too long.

 

Emerging from the bushes and taking half of the ruddy grass seeds and pollen with me, I jog up behind Greg'ry as he slows to a stop in front of the Post Office and stares at the door, looking like he wouldn't have a blind notion on what to _do_ with a key if he had one, leave alone actually fishing it out of his pocket and doing his flipping _job_ -

 

“Well fuck sake!! Are you going to just stand there like a simpleton or are you going to open up the shop or what?”

 

Greg'ry emits a shriek and, I'm fairly certain, wets himself a bit which in any case I can't blame him for, chugging back the ale all night and no doubt the tea all morning, and then Old Alec come a-looming out of the shrubbery roaring blue bloody murder at he – but never mind, never mind, I have me own priorities, about Greg'ry's state of undergarment I couldn't give a flying!!

 

G: “A-Alec, Jesus CHRIST, you frightened the absolute _life_ out of -”

 

A: “Yes, yes, life out of you. Come on then – you going to open up?” I can appear very commanding when I want to. Or maybe it's the crazed expression on my face that quenches Greg'ry's own justified indignation and sends him rattling in his britches for a set of keys audible, but he can't actually find them, rummage here, dig down there, explosions from your humble narrator - “FUCKing – how many pockets do you _have_ down there?!” I'm about ready to blow my stack here!! I do not have the luxury of time-wasting trouser-scouring!

 

Wounded: “ _Alright_ , Alec, blimmin' heck, take it easy.. What are you doing here, anyway? Shouldn't you be at Southampton be now?”

 

“I should a lot of things. Let's be having you!” I bang on the door.

 

G: “Hey! Don't waken the mother, or I'll catch it, she sees me not having opened yet, and the state I'm in..”

 

A: “Where you been all night since they emptied the Honey?”

 

Grinning. “ _Not_ where I should'a been – but _that's_ not for here,” says he, tapping his nose – no, his cheek, he can't quite focus on his nose. Bloody lush. And what's more, I know all about it, son, staying out all night and working your way through – but not now, not no more, come _on_ , open the door, my new leaf is a-turning, let's get going while the spirit still surges within me!

 

I nudge, elbow and shoulder at Greg'ry, reet randy _wild_ in my impatience. Greg'ry wastes more time grousing: “All RIGHT!! God, keep your hair on!”

 

Several aeons pass, and then we enter the P.O., Greg'ry looking to start his usual morning routine of shucking off coat, opening blinds, lighting fire, cleaning fingernails – nope, not today – I frogmarch him over to the desk, him moaning feebly in protest; I lift the flap most helpful and let him into the back office with his keys and sit him down in his chair and push it up to the glass fronted counter, and I hop up on the table I've sat him at, scattering envelopes.

 

Leaning back in his chair, he props an elbow in the file cabinet besides him and rubs his temple, closes his eyes, slumps -

 

Alec, panicked: “Hey. HEY! Now, none of that, son, you can sleep it off later, lookit – I need to send a wire, see? Urgently. _More_ than urgent – absolute – top priority. You hear me? Nod yes, Greg'ry, good, that's a boy.. now.. here's a pen.. oh sod it, you'll never be able to – no, let me take that – and that, good wee fella, and your keys, alright now, fetch us a blank form – hey – Hai!!” * fingers click click * “Nearly lost you there!”

 

His head droops forward and his fingers on the tabletop splay.

 

Finally: “A.. right. A wire, you said, dint you?” And he fumbles, frustratingly, in a box of paperclips. I steer his hand towards some more likely-looking papers on the desk and he flicks fingertips at them.

 

A: “Greggers, now, I don't mean to get up you, but I _were_ hoping to get this outward bound sometime before the turn of the next century.”

 

G, moody, but at least more lively: “GOD but you're like a briar today, Alec! Here – now – okay, this is the form – urgent, you say?”

 

A * crunches toast * : “Utmost. Pass it here -” I lean over and pluck his pen and poise to write. Actually. God. What to say? How to persuade..? I _was_ a bit of a boor the last time we spoke, at the hotel, me flouncing out the door like I done, ugh... Oh better just get him here, bring him to me post hasty, we'll sort all out thereafter. So, swinging my legs under the desk beside Greg's snoozy boozy form, I print right careful:

 

M – COME TO B.H W/O FAIL – A

 

Sense of deja-vu; only, this time, it's different – this time, he'll come. Like he told me to, that first night at the window, like I _did_ do, eventually. He will, he can't be doing without me! Nor I him!

 

Licking some marmalade off my lips I root around the desk for the ledger; I briefly look at my previous wire and have to smile wan at what that led to – that explosive day in London – aye, and night too!

 

Greg'ry – oh Lord, he's dropped off again; to be fair he do look main bushwhacked; I don't for a mo believe he were out entertaining some young lassie all night, but that he probably did drink his own set under the table.

 

Flapping the telegram to dry it, I fish for some blotting-paper and there's none, but sure, there's no particular finesse I require for this wire – facts is facts, and that's all we need between us 'cause we both know the truth, the meaning behind the words and letters.

 

“Right so, Greg'ry, that's great, we're in clover – if you – oh, no, wait, it needs a stamp, don't it? Up in the corner, official- like, hang it – where's the – oh, it's no use asking you, you dozy little twonk ..”

 

Hopping off the counter, and sliding boy and chair aside, I thrash the desk like the ferret down the rabbit-hole, even at the risk of waking the Sleeping Giant upstair'.

 

Ah – _here's_ a rubber stamp, and ink, hauld on, I've to change it to today's date – all fingers and thumbs as I roll the digits round clumsily, I look main anxious at the calendar and clock on the wall over the glass customer window and.. Friday, August 29, 5:40 in the A.M.. right.

 

Counting out the money on the counter – _I'm_ no slinking, stinking thief – mind you, it's a lucky thing that I were given so much well-wishing dosh last night. If only everyone were to twig what I'm now using it for..!

 

Even though it's still the crack of dawn, near about, feels like the day is careering away like a runaway train, time's a-wasting and I need, _need_ to get this here note clattering its way to London.

 

Very kindly bundling him up, for it's a mite frosty foggy, this early, I direct Greg'rey to his duties.

 

Alec: “Come on, now, there's a lad, first one foot, then t'other – okay, now, off you go! On your bike!” Credit to him, he keeps his balance, if not his sense of direction, and pedals uncertainly down the footpath towards the Green.

 

A: “Hai! Wait up!” Though it hardly seems necessary to've yelled that; he's going so dashed slowly I can jog still besides him easily. “Now remember, Gregs, where are you going?”

 

Circles me slowly – not unlike Fred done so long hence – Greg'ry's face is obscured by the scarf I a-fixed to him tender, muffles: “Station. Deliver a wire.”

 

A: “That's it! That's it man! That's just the ticket! Ta-ra then, and – thanks!” Waving a wobbly hand, away he goes, and I watch him thinking of wheels in motion, and impacts and outcomes and decided decisions – but what I done just now, it weren't so momentous, were it? Wheels were set in motion ages ago – two weeks now, up in the orchard, the piano parlour, the front porch... I'm just steering events towards their natural conclusion, that's all.

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

 

Though I; yes, it is difficult. I'm back to lurking again, skulking, looming, hiding, avoiding, criminal – this time at my own _home_ , no less. Though it's mine no longer – I'm well aware that what I'm about to do – life I'm about to embark on, carve out – is about to cut me off, to sever me from friends and family and familiarity – but that's already happened in secret, in my head, in my heart!

 

Lights go on in the upstairs – in the parents' room, and I watch the trembling candlelight travel 'cross the landing and into my room, where it's set down, on my chest-of-drawers most likely.

 

I blow out a breath, visible, in the cold slow dawning. Situation-wise, I'm sat in the bough of a sycamore tree in the little field across the road from our house – tree which I seen every day, near about, on opening the drapes, only now here I am, playing Peeping Tom on my own former self!

 

Looking up and down the misty, silent street, I puff in and out those cold foggy breaths. Now that it's on, it's underway, the machine's been started, what am I really hanging round for? Happen what I'm hanging around for, I'm trying to feel some kind of a good-by. A sense of an ending, sort of thing, but it's difficult to feel deep and dramatic; my socks are soaking.

 

Legs stretched out on the bough, booted ankles crossed, I tuck my praying hands 'twixt my knees for to keep 'em warm, keep 'em from fidgeting. 'Haint got to hand my lighter, even, it being tucked down in the bottom of my carry-on bag what I pinched from the bottom of the stairs earlier.

 

Pinched?! My own gear! From my own home of residence! You'd better start cultivating a better opinion of theysel', Alec lad, there's enough people who'll swing for you when this gets out – aye, and see _you_ swing!!

 

Anyroad, even if I were to roll me up a lovely, life-giving fag, I might be spotted by the ember and smoke and I don't want no fussin', now do I, not now my mind's made up unshakeable.

 

Actually, it's _entirely_ shakeable, moveable, thrown to the wind and wide open to influence; so much so that I'm not too sure that upon alighting my gaze upon Freddy stomping his boots with cold and impatience, and Dad drifting out the doorway, scratching his beard, and dear old Ma wrapping her shoulder shawl and tying her headscarf around her darling, hopeful face, I might not leap straight out of this here tree, bound across the street and jump straight into her arms and wail for her not to let me go, no, not to the Argentine nor up to Penge neither, nor Southampton, London – _any_ where, but tuck me back in bed safe and hidden away, boy I always was.

 

Still – and I cross my arms, chew on my hay-wisp, lift my chin, nose in the air – that's not for a man to be doing, now is it? S'alright for girls, or a certain kind of a boy – not yours t. though, no.

 

Ach, look, muppet that I am, mulling it all over desperate, I pull off my cap and rake my hair – God – look, wire's sent, alright, but – it's not written in blood or anything, it's not a sworn oath and covenant, far from it really, mebbes I still could -

 

“Bert! Bert, _do_ come along, eh? Get a move on, can't you, it's getting time..”

 

“It's main odd, that's all.. it's a queer thing..”

 

“Now Bert, Alec never _said_ we'd all be going to the docks together! He's most probably going with his friends, they seeing him off, he'll be along, make no mistake, good lad that he is, perfect angel.”

 

“Is that so, Mother? I should have figured him _exactly_ the sort of lad who needs dragging by the hair! He better bleedy _had_ have gone ahead of us, or I'll wring his neck, box his ears, and toss him into the Southampton Water! Neeta cleaning out the corner of the nursery for his blankets...”

 

“Of course he's gone on ahead, like a good obedient boy. Look – his travelling bag and coat are gone, where were right here at t'bottom of t'stairs where we kep' tripping on them, but I – I didn't like to nag him, these last few days.. leave on a – a sour note – oh -” And mopping.

 

“Now mother, it's natural to feel sentimental – you can't help it! But look at how you eventually recovered from _my_ going-away.. I'm sure a river was shed..”

 

“Now, Gertie lass, try and rally! Never see'd you so upset, old gel.. Come on, it's for the best..”

 

I'M RIGHT HERE.

 

They pass right by me and I hold my breath, my eyes flickering, heart pounding, waiting, _paining_.. Shit, I shouldn't've come... exhaling and shifting in the bushes, rustling, I wait to be spotted, extracted, put over a knee and walloped, then marched and manhandled up the gangway onto that boat.

 

I wouldn't mind, really, if they did. A bit at cross purposes with my own self, to be fair and frank with you. I figure, if they catch me, they catch me. But they don't. They sally right forth towards the corner of the street, to the stomping pony and trap, Dad and Fred hoisting Ma on ahead of them, off they go, and I realize that it couldn't have been otherwise.

 

I'm in a net, a trap, a snare.

 

I've already been caught, betwixt heart and belly, madness and hunger, and this time, I shall satisfy both.

 

Clip-clopping away, good-by, and I – drop out of the tree neatly, turn, breathe in powerful, and gallop Penge-ways, like the shortest odds at Aintree, quick, covering and completing the flat hills of my homeland. 


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

 

 

 

He's come!

 

He's here!!

 

He's with me!!!

 

Oh I can't even – the words, can't bring 'em, you know me by now, reticence itself, keep everything all bottled up, don't I – oh sod it!! I know that I spill everything to a person within five minutes of meeting them – but this!! This – he – he's floored me, that's what he done, I planned the whole thing and yet now – this waking dream – can't even speak on it – can't anyway, my mouth pressed to the shoulder of his jacket, warm and smelling of clean and fresh outdoors, sea air even, no, can't be, just fresh and fragrant and breezy and soft and thick and enclosing, his arms – his hand pressed to the back of my head, fistfuls of locks, gentle-like, t'other hand tight around my own shoulder'n, oh darling, darling!

 

“Darling, darling Alec..” Oh – that's _him_ talking, it's difficult to tell, what with one thing and another, difficult to _breathe_ , he's knelt down and has me hauled up off my little fireside blanket-pile to my knees again' him, and I've just liquefied like hot toffee, my weak, worn arms around his strong, upright torso, him propping me up, us panting, I'm exhausted but determined to be fully aware, more alive than ever I been, drink in This Moment, as I'm sure it will be ever and always revisited, in my memories and his too, judging by how he cling so...

 

Finally he releases me slow but keeps supporting me be the elbows, and he peering right intense into my face, and I slide my hands from they's resting on his hips, up his body, chest, neck to his face, beautiful, side-smiling, strong-jawed, and I laugh into it, joyous, unrestrained, giddy - 

 

“Right, Maurice?” And I jouncing his elbows a little, employing my eyes imploring: “You hear me? Mine you are now and – and I'm yours. That's how it's a-gonna be, from now onwards.” 

 

Smiling still, not a slip of it, those lips are  _strong_ , he just continues to hold my gaze; when my pupils flicker in earnest his do too. 

 

Lowering the eye-brows a little, trying to darken, I squeeze his arms for stress, I open my mouth for insistence: “I'm main  _grave_ , boy, this ain't no little thing that's happenin' here. I mean to stay with you – and I don't care one jot for – for obstacles nor rules nor interference – mmmmffff!!”

 

Finally,  _finally_ he's kisses me – oh, manna!! - his hands gone face-ward vicing me, attaching his mouth to mine firm, warm, wet, moving, goes straight to my dick but I put my heels to the ground, sort of thing, for now, plant 'em, other parts demonstrate their elation firstly, my arms flail wildly and knock off the straw boater he'd been wearing, then I cling to him, chests pressed, my nose squished against his (high, heavenly) cheekbone, and I frantically inhale when I can, he's kissing me so deeply again and again, unrelentant, like he's afeared I'll disappear if he stops his giving and taking, doing my breathing for me. 

 

Now pushing me, no struggles even if I wanted to, his hands in my hair, my neck, my arse, my back, he veers so very  robust ly and definitely forward and presses me against that upside-down boat I've idled away many's an hour, sat upon with my fag and old periodical, or my almanac, or just staring out at the rain hitting the windows from the nice warm and dry. 

All that bloody yammering I were doing and now this, sweet blessed relief as he devours me, not the merest speck of doubt infecting him, his movements, his caresses, presses and all-comsuming kisses, speak not of desperation or hunger but of assurance, power,  bold ness – 

 

\- I could fight back – why amn't I? After all, it were me who –  _I'm_ the one in control, calling the shots, I set my sights on him, didn't I, I demanded, I ordered him here for  _my_ wantings -

 

And yet – and yet and yet – he drags me bodily, he still on his knees, I'm a-hauled over to the cushions and blankets and old clothes and odds and lowers me firmly into that makeshift bed. 

 

Quickly, I take the opportunity to gasp for air in the space it takes him to shake and impatiently shoulder off his own smart navy jacket, which he then tucks underneath me, adding it to the nest mess I've been kipping on, on and off for the last fortnight. On and off – I have an inkling that's what I'll be feeling of him, on my body, very presently! 

 

And now me on my back, and him hovering over, nose nudging mine but not yet, I wait, his left arm snaking underneath me wrapped tight around my shoulders, adjusting me to his favoured angle of reaching, and his right hand a-pressing possessive on my hip, anchoring me, stopping me from rising up or moving from this position, not that I'd want to,  _Christ_ ...

 

God it's so... after all the hurly-burly of the last while, the thinkings to be done, the wretched agonizing, the goings round in circles, fighting internal and ext., pleading and cursing and game-playing... feels so good to just lay down my arms and surrender...

 

I stop clinging and pawing at him even; I let my hands flop back either side of my own face, expectant, waiting, yearning... This is it, I know I've gave in, met my Waterloo, no saving me now, dasen't object, dasen't protest, don't lock horns with he, and he closes his eyes and dives in again, and I whine into it, forgetting my own name and history and responsibilities and become a vessel of pure feeling and emotion, I have one use and purpose in life and that's to be kissed, kissed into mad oblivion by Maurice, just engulfing me with his lips, rotating his head round and round languid, I can feel his eyelashes and someone's sweating, and when he draws back to wheeze in some oxygen himself, when he's had his fill, first fill, for now, I open my pleading eyes into his beautiful blues more sir, more, please take all of me take everything!

 

Maurice eventually releases my hip what he's been pressing into the floor, almost painfully, and now he slides his hand fully explorative-like, taking every by-road and de-tour and unmapped country lane on the way upwards, my fingers twitch but I still do nothing but stare at his face as he strokes the fabric of my clothes, slowing it down right deliberate, our breathing returned almost to regular.. 

 

Could well amend that, I could; from this vantage I could easily twist towards him and grab him, push him down onto his back, see how  _he_ likes it, reward him for obeying my summons like a good lad... Bud I don't, I just gulp down yet another gasp at him trailing his fingers up to my shirt collar, and he starts – there he starts at last. 

 

Tickling my neck with his soft fingers, he's pulling apart my scarf I'd been a-wearing while I were whiling away some of the afternoon sat on the deck trailing toes, smoking and fretting into a frenzy before coming in here to wait by the fire. Wrapped up well I am, this draughty old dug out, bundled up in as many bits I could find that weren't already on the Southhampton loading dock - Maurice is slowly disassembling me now. Feeling he's going to provide me an alternative and altogether more delicious form of warmth and protection. 

 

A lot more careful and slow and reverential he's being, than  _I_ were, with him, in the hotel, me about ripping his gear off with me teeth – only, in this case, I can feel delighted panic rising because it's not so much his languid pace but the fact that it's all happening at  _once_ – unbuttoning my waistcoat followed swiftly by my shirt, and as soon as they loosens his left hand over by my shoulder is pulling them off, bunching them and as I wriggle round to help them off oh look – he has my britches undone already, right expert he is, I'm sure he'd be tugging my socks off with his toes only for he's got his shoes on still, such were his haste to expose me – in fact he is still fully and finely dressed as he was when he come in here and woke me; imagine, he dressed himself this morning for the day's usual pursuits did he? Work, or towning about? Went down to breakfast, normal as you please.. Until he got my wire.. yes...

 

Ho-holy hell, he's encouraging me to sit up a little while he pulls my vest up my chest, I'm limp, all I do is raise my arms weakly, allowing him to pull it up and off, my head emerging with hair like a bramble and face flushed and I drop back down and groan as he scoots back a bit and encourages me to rise up my hips – oh dear lord, just that one undulation and I'm - ! - so's he can ease down my pants, and my jocks he removes just as unselfconsciously, that is,  _he's_ not suffering from the temple-pulse and blush of the conscious self, if  _I_ am surely it's understandable, me looking down as my prick is revealed but as yet unattended to, it's pure waiting and wanting itself, and even as he is tending to the final touches, rolling off my socks gradual  _agonizing_ , and me whole body flushing still with something close to embarrassment but more pleasing and enjoyable, shyness mebbes – Me! Imagine! The very embodiment of blue and base behaviour – well if the reverend is to be believed. How have I so suddenly and sweetly lost control, it's slipped right out of my grasp like soap in the bath...

 

Maurice leans back to survey his handiwork: me, flickering in the firelight, both pale and blotchy, relieved of all my shielding. I just know this is my chance to floor him a little, to grab the reins and establish even a minuscule measure of power – I need to sit up, challenge him, smile at him rakish, bite that lower lip till it's throbbing, eyes smoky, reduce him down to pure wanting jelly just with my naked body – only,  _only_ \- he just runs his eyes up and down me, frowning just a little, panting, just a _little_ , dammit, his hand resting on his own hip – God I – I want it so much, want  _him_ so much, just from his watching I start to trembling, and breathing heavy again, wriggling my toes, and twitching my fingers in the blankets and, and – I'm not deliberately doing any of this! I'm watching me too!! - pulling my legs up a bit bent at the knees, and letting them fall open - 

 

“Maurice!” Hoarsely, coarsely I beg – and he looks at me sudden – at my face I mean – eyebrows a question mark – as if I've pulled him out of a reverie – happen I _have_ stunned him, but this is no time, no, sir, to bottle it – don't come to your senses, but keep giving in, sinking into your feelings -

 

Clutch his shoulder as much for my own reassurance as his, I lean over, lips desperate for the life-giving, and he gives me –  _something_ – nudges his cheek against mine and it does go some way, but then he kisses down my neck, body-bound, little and ticklish, he's remembered why he were undressing me in the first place, thank God!!

 

Oh,  _yes_ , this is more like it, you know I  _were_ getting a little chilly a-laid there bare, fire's getting a bit neglected and will be glowing low soon but sod that, if he keeps this up, shan't be needing  the l it grate, a bonfire couldn't out-do - ! 

 

Now he's crawled on top of me, lowering his handsome weight heavy and firm down on me, working his way down my brazen nakedness, kissing and nuzzling with his face, and caressing and fingertip-circling with his hands, and – perhaps unconsciously – pulsing his hips against me, against mine, then as he squirms down, against my thighs, knees, his fingers on my chest now stroking wanton, his face approaching my fully anticipatory hard-on, his nose pressed against me blowing out quick sporadic breaths as I lean up to keep drinking – guzzling  _– chugging –_ it all in visually, still hardly able to believe it, I pat his head feverishly, resisting all essential urges to guide him to my prick, his mouth still smacking all over my hairy stomach, leaving a wet trail, so fast and frantic all of a hop that he pulls back suddenly, propped up on his strong arms either side of my hips, looking down with his floppy fringe hiding his face, veritable  _heaving_ for air, in and out and over again for dear life..

 

Combing his hair back over and over, I'm trying to ignore my dick bobbing inches – well, a foot mebbes – from his panting face, which I curl my hand round, and draw over to me, and eyes lock. A smile which I return so grateful – phew, that's actually a torrential relief, him grinning at me, there's the trouble, sometimes, with fantastic sex; you get so caught up in applying the self to the body, and generally, repeating that application over and over that you might lose that connexion, however briefly, that towed the two of yous together in the first place... That's to say, I could just lie back and relish the feeling of being kissed all over by a beauteous and I will say talented man – like I've felt before a – time or two... dozen...  But I want to stay locked firm in the moment, aware. And  I don't want Maurice imagining who else  _I_ could be neither! 

 

“You've me main warmed up again.. no mistake,” I say so soft against his lips. “Here – feel...” And I lie back down pulling him on top of me, chest to chest this time so he's heavier than ever, and I'm actually a bit winded as he lies boneless on me, nestled between my legs, him rubbing into my neck with his face and slipping his hands down my sides exactly like he should, good lad, you just take the idea and run with it, that's it, I peek over my own arms that are wrapped round his shoulders, and I'm ready with a sharp breath inwards when he covers my arse with his hands and I push upwards instinctive, and he slides them under further and _squeezes_ and Lord help me, I know what's in store right needful.. 

 

I grip his forearms, still soft and encased in their oatmeal-coloured jersey sleeves; I might pause to add at this momentary love lull that he's still  completely dressed from head to toe, as respectable and covered as I am crude and nude.. He's got on a nice starchy white shirt on underneath and his divinely long legs are moving off me carefully – but not fully – in smart light tan coloured slacks. Real leisure-wear: seems reet appropriate because what could be more leisurely than this?! 

 

Now he's by my side, on his side, and I feel a huge surge of excitement inside, when his hand pats my inner thigh, a moment, for steeling, and he then reaches down, brushing my balls but going further, lower, right between my legs which are splayed obscenely open and I grin idiotically and rake my eyes over the ceiling in readiness –  _ooooh_ there it is, he's sliding his finger against me, then in me, just barely, just the one, just the index most likely, usually is, no, don't think on no-one else, won't ever again!

 

“Mmm... oh ... shit, yes..” And his other hand strokes my face as he gets the idea from my responses, all I can do at this point not to push myself up to sitting and bounce, but – this is so much better, he's concentrating so hard on me, on _me_ , no one has ever paid me so much attention at once before, so much emotional devotings, he's so gentle and yet strong and he's slow but relentless, and _oh_ were that his thumb, gone again, now, he's trying different fingers, I push against him, inviting him further, whining still and he finally emits a noise too, a grunt only, not a very manly one, so maybe one of those little closed-mouth, back of throat cries you do, girls do especial, when they's lips are pressed together and their foreheads glisten. 

 

Old Maurice is a quick learner; removing his hand for a bit while I whirl, my head dizzy, he shuffles while my eyelids flutter and when it's back, his hand snaking up my crack, his fingers, so blessedly blissful, are more welcomeable, and wet, and I whimper while his head drops onto the pillow beside me, stammering into my ear, I hear but barely: “Oh Alec... oh my dear, darling angel...” and such like, over and over, I can feel every smack of his wet lips as he draws breath and tumbles out more endearments, more, he's working those fingers, more, I'm kicking the cushions and writhing and curling my toes into the blankets and my fingers into his jumper, drawing him to me as if he could get any closer, his thumb is pressing and pressing the  skin between my balls and my hole with every filling and I'm just about falling, rocketing, descending towards - 

 

Aaaah –  _ah_ – hold it, careful now – Maurice, he's slipping his fingers out now, the wiry dark hair down there clinging to his wet knuckles as he takes such care to relieve me slowly, only it's not true relief, not what I really need, only one thing will do the trick now and as I look at him through heavy lids my heart skips a beat, then recommences its duties as I gaze, panting, at him lying back removing his trousers, it's causing him no small amount of frustration, red face on him fingers (So fine! So proficient!) flying, and I lurch forward to help him, tugging frantic and he lets me, I finally free those buttons and tug his pants and keks down, first one side, then the other, to his knees, all the while I'm throbbing with the yearning, I can  _hear_ it pumping in my ears, the pure, sheer  _insistence_ my body is radiating with, demanding his, and knowing it's actually happening, it's coming, I'm stumbling back onto the blankets, legs once again akimbo, and he's scrambling after me, red-faced and cursing as he tries to liberate his legs from the britches bunching at his knees, I shake my head and grab his wrist, no, I need it  _now_ sir, and anyways I rather adore him wearing clothes, his Savile Row smarts, while I'm totally naked and sweaty and he's pumping into me. 

 

Oh sir, Mr. Maurice sir!! I pull him to me, the most natural place for me to be in the world, underneath his warm soft firm body, and eyes closed, mouth showing teeth grinning, cheeks flushed - 

 

“...Shall I..?” Eh? I tip my head forward again, nearly bumping foreheads, us nose to nose and find him watching, waiting, paused. _Now_ he's looking for guidance?!

 

No, not guidance, he peers into me cautious-like, he's not doubting – I can ruddy  _feel_ his certainty smushed against my cheeks in pure readiness - 

 

“I know what you want,” says he, which shouldn't be too difficult to work out, “it's just I'm – not altogether certain how to go about, really...”

 

Christ. “Maurice, you  _must_ know! You were just doing it, God's sake!” I'm laughing as I say this, to lighten the – oh, no, laughing was the wrong thing. He goes redder but not with the amorous, he comes away from my body a little, looks wary between my legs and: “Well... it's all very well for you! I want to get this right, dash it,” and, chastened, I wheel around mentally to look at things from his viewpoint. I  _had_ said that this full-on caper can be fiddly, didn't I? Back in London. And he heeded. 

 

“Alright, petal,” - at this he meets my gaze moody - “here -” and I gently pull his arm to me and open my legs more, and he at least takes this as encouragement to incline over me, intimate as before, and I reach in between us to grasp his dick, big and warm and ready and I can just _feel_ him set his jaw, which is floating beside my temple, so tall and long as he is. 

 

“Alright – alright – let me just -,” I realize that he was dead right to give pause just now when he done, there _is_ a bit of – prep-work, to be done; I free my arm that he's lying on and apply two hands to his dick – see now, if he'd plunged right in he might have done him _self_ an injury – never mind me, no, couldn't bear that – had he not rolled back this skin a little, and applied more – hang on - 

 

“Your hand too, sweetheart, c'mere,” I lick his palm plenty and he quivers as I bring it down by the wrist and have him slowly wank himself. Wish I could see...

 

“Now,” I whisper, and even though I did, I still jerk with surprise as he pushes against me, there it is, this is it, and oh, God, i-in, gentle, so gentle, but so _big_ , and I force myself not to resist, the way you do, when you do this, he's gone stiff as a board – his whole body like, not just his man, his hands clamping the blankets on the floor like you would a life-buoy, and his hair tickles as he turns his face to my puffing, scarlet one and he mouths along my cheek searching, but I: “No! W-wait... don't kiss – yet, need to breathe...” Seems to understand, he compensates by copiously kissing my cheeks and neck and hairline and still I'm taking more, more – _ah_.... _ah_....

 

Maurice moves very very slowly, almost meticulously, grunting with effort, Alec stays mostly silent, see, getting used to it.. it's been a while... him going in, and waiting, and pulling out, repeated and rewarded with my moans at last...

 

See – just, been a while, is all. Not – pain, as such, but all the same, not that all-fired heavenly – getting fucked – at first. It's a bit like when you're bathing and playing in the sea, right far out, the water up to your chin and you wait for the waves to come, and when they do you get ready, and – bob – right up, and down again, and look out for the next one – we used to do that all the time over at Dover where my cousins live... 

 

Oooh...  _oh_ , God, thank God he's being so tentative tender, without me even having to ask, he's aware... mm... knows exactly what to do, he does, or his body does at least, when it's let liberated free thus... Cor, I remember first time doing this, some other fella, don't matter now, only it did smart, sting, well, hurt something terrible, if I'm honest, and – now this is right daft, you'll have a right laugh, bit shaming, actually – I felt as if, if I  _said_ something, to the lad, at the time, that it was sore and would he stop, mebbes, or go a little gentler, well, I were afraid complaining thus would make me sound right wet and unmanly! Unmanly! And the caper I were at!! I'm just a bag of cats, I tell thee. Crazy - I admit it. 

 

I remember – bit happier of a memory now, bit balming, I mentioned this incident to a lass I knew, well, one I met anyroad, in a kind of dive up in Manchester when I were visiting my brother – other brother, Bernie – and he buying me drink after drink, new job at him, and I sharing them round with a gang of new friends, why not! So's this girl, she know'd exactly what I were driving at, in terms of – well, you know, going some ways to enjoying thy _sel_ in such a love-lie, I reckoned a girl would know, having no other way to come at the situ, sort of thing, and she says to me, that what you need is The Right Person, one who'll listen to you and read you right and want you feeling good as well as himself. Wise old bird that she be, here we are...

 

Ah – where was I? I'd better get back to the moment now, hadn't I, that's what you're wanting to hear about! Feeling a surge, now, not of strict sex-pleasure, mind, that's unmistakable, but of just – happiness and affection and perfect  _gladness_ that it's him, with me, on me in me, he's holding me, hands on flanks, filling me, but so ginger-like, and I wrap my arms tight around his back so firm I cross my wrists and bury my face, eyes pinched, mouth beaming, in his soft woolly shoulder, hooking a leg – can't manage both, I'm no circus acrobat – 'round his'n, and he groans a little himself and starts to wriggle and struggle on top of me, and he props himself up off me and reaches down quick to his pants round his knees and does about ten rounds with them, cursing, trying to get them off.

 

“Fack,” says he, “Fack.” As he rocks off me completely and yanks them off flinging them indiscriminate through the air where they alight on the chest-of-drawers, and as he applies himself back to me, yes, more panting, I see he is wearing those dandy-ish sock suspenders on his calves, Ha! Ha! I must guffaw, except, it's half amusement and half delirious delight, and I rummage round on the blankets and cushions myself to reposition myself to reach his lower back and arse, which is pumping away a little faster now, oh shit yes, and as he moves and moves, those juicy muscles contracting rhythmically, I think about how much I'd like to _see_ him in action, his behind from behind, what a shame there's no looking glass to hand, surely, life is very unfair. 

 

Noticing me laughing, though, he dips his head so we're face to face proper and I tone down to a mere grin, and he wipes tears off my face, where'd they come from? I don't – I didn't.. 

 

Now he’s slipping his hand down my body, down ours, and reaching in, I wonder if he's adjusting himself – oh, he's touching me, seems surprised: “Oh – your preparatory – it's gone – that is to say -” He is to say I've gone soft, is what, perfectly normal, and, ah, dote that he is, he tries wanking at me, and I kick a bit and stop him: “Ah – Ah! No, it's alright, you don't need to, I won't be able to, it's grand, it's just been a while is all.”

 

Maurice: “How long is a while?” 

 

Alec: “Well... I don't rightly know...” I move my nose from his shoulder to the hair by his ear, whispering, religious: “...too long. I been waiting on you..”

 

“Alec..”

 

“Mmm.... oh, just keep moving in me, that'll do it, feels so blessed good..”

 

And so he does but even more cautious, slowing, and his body is flooding with tension and his poor beetroot face red to burst: “I – I think I'll need to – oh God,  _God_ , I'm going – I'm going - !!”

 

Trust him to get it all arseways – it's coming he's doing, though I suppose going too, away from him and into me, to me, right -

 

Clinging to him, but letting him keep his own pace; my voice trembling, low, eager, smiling: “Come on then! That's it! Come along!” And suddenly he does, his frantic movements, the gasp, the grab, the juddering, the sweat pouring, the wail: he don't scream out my name when he comes – people seldom do, you know, being somewhat indisposed with struggling to fill their lungs air ample – but just after, when his head drops onto the cushions again besides me, and his heaving shoulders relax degree by slow degree, and he sags onto me, like a sackful of oats, spreading his weight all over, then he: “Alec... * pants * ... Alec?” 

 

Alec, curling that brown, dishevelled hair around his fingers: “I'm here... you're alright... well much much better than alright, shouldn't wonder!” Lazy eyes look at me, small, blissed-out smile. 

 

My legs are about killing me – they're not used to being so open so long, despite what my sordid reputation might suggest! And he's still lying on me, with no apparent intention to move – ever – so I ease myself from quite under him, whilst still doing my best to have us touch as much as possible. 

 

Thinking he might go to sleep, couldn't blame he – I wonder if it would be right crass and unromantic to mop up a bit, then proceed to stomp round the boathouse a bit to get rid of these blasted pins and needles in my left leg he near – and I wanted it, at the time! - crushed, when sitting up, I notice his body, him lying long and spent on his front, his jumper rucked up to show his freckly back, and I touch it glistening, sliding my gaze  _whimpering_ over his behind, I've woke up a bit now, if you know what I mean – Maurice, he does, he's noticed too, and he heaves himself up – with an impressive push-up I might add – till he's sat up on the blankets besides me and he pushes me down again gentle and there I go again, obeying him, pliant, only – well, some orders are for one’s own good, aren’t they?

 

Now he bites his thumb-nail, a gesture I'm more than familiar with, being in my own company a disproportionate amount of the time, not being able to get away, and thus he with his own thumb on his fat red lips, hesitates, and inclines his head a little towards my lap, not really meaning it, shit-scared, really: “How should I? Erm...”

 

To be perfectly honest, I was this close to telling him, hey, it's alright, needn't bother, tell you what I'm shagged, it's fine, next time, because I blimmin'  _am_ , main exhausted, and only half-hard, really, but then I remember the odd time I were in that position, not too often mind! But, say, with a girl – never a fella, they can take care of themselves and generally do – and you're there working away on her, only for her to say, either gentle or sharp, hey, you can stop, it's not working, it won't happen, never mind, but after all that effort and getting your  _own_ jollies and assuming she were too, a bit at least, I would mind. Dreadfully. Not being able to give full satisfaction is a right crushing blow, especially when you're sweet on a lover, and I know full well already that Maurice is just head over heels devoted to me – that's that. 

 

Reaching out with my arm, I: “Hey, come over here, up here. I don't want your face way the hell down there, c'mon,” and I tug him by the shoulder – almost like a cricketing jumper, is this – and he snuggles against me, smiling face tucked against mine, getting comfy and close before circling his hand round my dick, now it's decided, to my eternal relief. Patience of a professional saint, me. 

 

“If I do it slowly,” says he, whispering, “Can we kiss?”

 

I don't even bother suppressing a laugh. What's the point in hiding things from him?

 

Brings me off though, he does, lazily, easily, and there's kissing, oh yes, only a lot more relaxed and easy this time, happen he's as tired as I am but unwilling to drop off to sleep lest we miss a minute, I break away from his lips and squeeze my eyes and bite my lip and come: “ _Mmmmhhh_ ,” quiet now, for some reason, it's not like the passion has gone, it's more like it's changed, gone a bit - sacred, muted – as if, after our frantic re-coupling as we clashed back into each other, we have to now wonder if we really believe, if we exist, us two as a pair,  _aside_ from the brilliant banging... Well, we'll cross that bridge...

 

Full dark outside now, window on the sloped ceiling suggesting a sky full of stars, and bright moonlight streaming in where it can, the glass as dirty as it is.

 

* * * * 

 

So: after. Panting, sweaty, exhausted. Maurice lies with his head on my chest the way he likes; I try to lift a leg feebly to see if it's still in working order and it wobbles and hits the wooden planks of the floor. Hollow thud seems to stir him and he propels himself forward awkwardly covering me, getting his face nearer mine, I think to talk at long last and I open my mouth so eager but he thwarts this, if that's the right word, by kissing me, and again, but soft, sweet and tentative as ever we done, he's still the boy he were up in that Penge Orange Room that first night, but he's so many other boys too, strong and straight and calm and commanding... upright, regal, and yet - yes, impulsive and lewd and loud when the mood sweeps him.. Mm.. that tongue. 

 

I yawn.“God.. but I'm jiggered.”

 

Maurice's hand idles my balls, my dick, soft now, just because he can, and he's revelling in it. Smiles.

 

Alec: “Nippy too – hang about -” and I pull myself up seated (being careful not to put my not insubstantial weight on my arse, dear Lord!) I pick up the poker and agitate the embers and place some more bits of log what I brung in earlier, having chopped 'em way back March, round the diminished flames. It'll come on in a bit – though how long we'll be staying now I'm less sure of. 

 

Maurice: “Oh! Oh, you must be cold, here, allow me..” And he roots around in the blankets and pulls out his own jacket specific and deliberate, wrapping it round me from behind as I face the grate cross-legged, he hugs me soundly and rests his chin on my shoulder, us both gazing into the fire contemplative, when my tummy rumbles. 

 

Alec: * groan *

 

Maurice: “Haw-haw!” Tickling my waist he does, playful-like, helps me recover from his horsey laugh. 

 

A: “I am fair ravenous, come to that. Feel like I've just swum the Channel!” Quick, kiss his cheek so he knows I'm not exactly sorry for his wearing me out the way he just done. 

 

M: “You poor old thing. When did you last eat?” - for my cursed belly keeps gurgling, even with his palms pressed against my abdomen. Nuzzling at my hair too, makes my head right fuzzy.

 

A: “..Mmm.. Hmm. Well, last night it were proper, I suppose. On account of my leaving – well, my  _plans_ for leaving, Ma made my favourite.”

 

M: “What's that?”

 

A: “Lanc'shires.” Maurice raises his brows. I elaborate; “Hotpot.” Still nothing. I try: “Lamb and potato stew, like. Then, for pudding, apple crumble and custard. Village is filthy with apples still, did you notice – no – you probably didn't -” - I gesture with me arm, which I've slung into his long navy sleeve, the cuff flapping absurdly - “over by the Northern Yard of the estate, where's the old labourin' cottages, the apple-shed is main full still. They'd want to use 'em up afore they get covered in flies.”

 

M: “Hmm.”

 

A: “Or the pigs'll have 'em.”

 

M: “Ha, yes.”

 

Slipping round in his arms, I lean  my chin on his shoulder this time. “I bet you had yourself a full English for brekkie; signs on it, my word the pluck in you just now!” And I squeeze his hip for emphasizing. “Couldn't do  _that_ on an empty stomach!” And he blushin', and I can see that he's main ready to pin me down and fuck me into next week, but he's nay willing to talk on it yet – yet. 

 

M: “Actually, I haven't had much of an appetite, haven't really been eating. Nor sleeping too well, since London...”

 

Shit. We would have to come round to that. Too soon to distract him with Round Two? My arse says it is...

 

A sighs. “I  _am_ main sorry Maurice. The hotel, that morning, not my finest hour...”

 

M shifts a bit. “I can hardly criticize you for being confused and uncertain.”

 

A: “Don't - I were a right uncaring bastard to you.”

  
M: “As was I to you; those letters I rejected, the thoughts I – and lashing out, blaming you for everything.”

 

A: “That's different.”

 

M: “How so?”

 

A: “....” I adjust myself in his arms. I bring my thumb, still covered in his coat-cuff, to my teeth and nibble. “I dunno. Just.. I should have known better, me. Having, like, more experience.” 

 

M: “Have you experienced this before?” And he jogs me a little, to let me know what he means: us, this. 

 

A: “Well... no. Not quite like this, nor.. even a bit like it.” I wait for him to say, “Me neither,” or more likely, “Nor I.” But he doesn't and my bloody awkward insides break the silence again with a low growl. 

 

A: “God – sorry! My fault – I were haring about all night and day and never really put any forward thought into where my next meal were coming from.” 

 

Maurice rocks me gently in his embrace, him sat legs folded Indian-style now and me curled up in his lap, near about, a-leaning against his lovely woolly shoulder. Dry wood in the fire snaps.

 

A: “...I suppose I half-thought it'd be liver and onions or whatever was on the menu for the steerage tonight!”

 

M, mysteriously: “Your kit is on the boat. All your things, I am sorry Alec.”

 

A: “Orah... don't be... sure it's nothing reet important. Anyroad, it weren't everything! I grabbed my carry-on this morning at home, I had  _that_ much wherewithal about me. In fact, as it happens -”

 

Hmm, now where'd it disappear to, hard to see in just the moonlight and the firelight, where'd I chuck it when I were tidying earlier – ah – over there under one of the dirty windows, besides a broken old urn. I lean over, reaching, and instead of releasing me, Maurice simply leans with me, and I huff and struggle and he only holds me tighter, us nearly off balance as I - 

 

A: “... you daft baggage! Will you let me – here – got it, now..” And I ferret through the pockets of my haversack, through hankies and bits of spare clothes I'd forgotten to pack in my kit, and tobacco tin and boarding docs and - 

 

Ah! “Here...” And I extract the Dairy Milk Davey gifted me t'other night at the pub, and isn't it a testament my incredible willpower (not much been in evidence of late or, in truth – in use), that it's lasted s'long? Well, it  _was_ intended for the trip, Davey said, or to put it another way, for to eat on 29 Aug. That's today – and I sure need the nourishment. 

 

A: “Ah, it's gone all melty again, nevermind... it tastes better that way! Here -” And I have to keep shaking back those sleeves of that big coat I'm bunched up in, otherwise naked, I crinkle open the paper and hold it up to Maurice.

 

M: “You have it Alec, you said you were starving.”

 

A: “Have just a little, go on, keep me company.”

 

Smiling at that, I seem to be able to do it so easily, he leans obligingly over and I take the opportunity to jerk the package up sudden like, getting chocolate on his nose deliberate. 

 

A: “HA! HA! You  _do_ look a picture!” And he do too, his frowning face now doing a further battle royale to fight the grin, his shirt collar still somehow straight and his jersey relative unwrinkled. I take a warm soft piece, extra gooey so he has to lick it off my fingers; he likes that better. 

 

I'm having the rest of it though, or my stomach will start digesting its own lining. 

 

Licking the chocolate paper and all but swallowing it accompanying, as he looks on combing my nape, I: “So I reckon it'd be main wise for the pair of us to light out for the territory sharpish, and get going straight away. I mean – I'm sure to be missed and – in fairness now – it wouldn't be too hard for the pater or Fred or any of the lads that they collar to smoke me out, knowin' I'd either be  _here_ or the Honeychurch..”

 

I suck the last of the Cadbury's off my fingers. “And I'd rather  _not_ get caught right about now, though I suppose rather now than earlier when we was going at it hammer and tongs, but still, if I were rooted out I would catch it something terrible, and to care but Pa and Fred and the Reverend would see me packed off to the army or summat,” - he clings sudden to my shoulder - “or jammed into a suitcase and tossed onto the next available ship to Buenos Aires -” here he inclines closer again, slides his arm round my chest and rests his face on my bare shoulder where his bally great jacket keeps slipping off. 

 

M, murmuring against my skin: “I must go and see Clive.”

 

I leap to my feet fluid, incredulous, if a leaping can be said to lack cred, and then jump away from him for good measure: “WHAT! You must – are you stark staring loony?!”

 

Fear flooding as I cling his jacket to me; it's so long, he's so tall that it falls well below my hips. I pull it up prim towards my neck and back away towards the door. “Oh, no. Are you going to dob me in?”

 

I look out the window fearful, it's so dark but I'll know my way okay from feeling, memory -

 

M: “Alec.”

 

\- only, I won't get too far without me boots on, and I'll look a right asylum escapee in just a coat -

 

M: “Alec! Where are you going?”

 

\- his coat, and – where on God's green earth will I go? Can't go home;  _Normannia's_ gone for a burton. Davey'll be like the cat that got the cream with how wrong I got it but he'll take me in, I know it -

 

M: “Alec. Really!” Exasperated, he's struggled back into his trousers and he's up and beside me at the door, firmly by the elbow. 

 

M: “Of course I'm not going to alert the police! How you could even think it!”

 

A: “You tell Durham – it's as good as!”

 

M: “No. He won't tell. He won't be able to even verbalize this to another person, let alone a member of the Met, let alone a respectable constituent..”

 

A * snorts * : “Then why...?”

 

M * stands tall * : “I have to tell him that it's all over between us.”

 

A: “I thought there weren't anything between yous? Nothing –  _really_ , I mean.. nothing you could hang your hat on..”

 

M: “That's it exactly; that's how it's always been. Something, yes, but so ... affected and academic and insubstantial, and yet we – he – I – keep dragging it on and on.” 

 

I think about the other servants laughing about that odd Mr. Hall who mysteriously visits the squire so very often, “never with a wife or any companion”, “old college friend, you follow”, “really quite sad!” - as I watch him open the boathouse door and step out onto the squeaky deck. 

 

Sliding his hands into his pockets, he looks out at the shimmering lake, then up at the moonlight. A discernible lack of cold, visible breath... he must be holding it in, trembling, tense..

 

Wrapping his jacket tight about myself like a blanket, I pad up behind him and follow his gaze at the bobbing boats. 

 

A: “Crossing the lake towards the Tower Island and then east to the back Windy Meadow...there's another dock over there, near the road, might be the best way to escape undetected. Unseen, like.”

 

He turns to me. 

 

A: “I could see to it, prepare one of 'em, there's only a drop of rainwater,” I nodding at the boats knocking each other gently. I shuffle my feet a little; my toes are freezing. 

 

Looking up at him hopeful; he tugs gently on my overgrown fringe.

 

M: “Won't be long.”

 

A: “Don't be.”

 

Swift kiss and he's away, boatered and loafered, whirling around and jogging off into the woods, not at my full gallop but picking a bit more careful; as I stand on the deck and watch I fancy that his hurry is that he can't wait to get back to me.. yes.. that's it.. After all, and I turning back to the boathouse, I can't  _make_ him feel any more or less about anyone or anything. Just make sure he loves me the  _most_ . 

 

Taking a deep chestful of the midnight – near about – air, I open the creaky old door and survey the room; the pushed-aside furniture, fishing rods, polo mallets, gardening tools rusted to their nails on the walls, birds' nests,  _our_ nest of cushions and blankets. So familiar, so intimate and beloved, because it gave us a Place, home, for a bit, but now wherever we go will be ours, together. 

 

I know I should gather my things, such as they are, and jam 'em into my swag, tidy away the blankets away from prying eyes, douse the fire – but instead I stand and hug his warm, silky lined coat to me for a bit, just drinking in, existing, appreciating like this, for a bit. 

 

 

 

* * * *

 

 

 

“Ahoy!” 

 

Hnn – Hn? Whuh – whuzat? Dun – was – huh? Still dark...

 

Oh yeh – that's where I am; I bailed out us a rowing boat, alright, and then I sat within in it to test it, then I figured I may as well lay in it to test it further, with me ankles and arms crossed and cap pulled over my eyes it swaying right rhythmic like a cradle.. needed another forty winks after that going over at the fireside earlier – I've not forgotten, no not the littlest!

 

Laughter from the edge of the water. Looking round – oww! - neck's fair stiff, despite my bag I were using as a pillow, I prop myself up a bit on my elbows and peer at the forest and moonlit Maurice, looking right resplendent in his beige jumper and light tan slacks and ridiculous straw hat on his head, one hand in a pocket, strolling along the deck, grinning like the Cheshire cat: “Heads up!” 

 

Barely time to open my eyes fully a'fore something's fired at me and I snatch at it before it lamps me in the head.. an apple, it is, and - another – and – fuck, Maurice! - he bowls three more missiles at me in rapid succession: “I came back by way of the orchard.” 

 

“Isn't it well for you!” I grouse, nonetheless carefully arranging the fruit on the blanket I've pinched by my feet. 

 

Maurice laughs, eyes closed and mouth open teeth gleaming, and even though it's so loud and haughty I know it's a sound that will always bring me over all warm. 

 

Still with his hands in his pockets, jaunty as you please, he swings his big long leg straight from the wooden board-walk into the boat with no warning, sending it rocking wildly as I cling both hands to the sides: “Mind – MIND!! You jackass!!”

 

Paying my squawks not the slightest bit of heed, he unties the rope and hops along the crazily veering boat as I try to restore some balance amidst the sudden nausea in my stomach – and the tin of ginger nuts Ma packed are currently, uselessly, sailing along the currents of the Atlantic Sea!! 

 

Maurice is not thus afflicted. “I see you found your clothes at last. The Great Exhibitionist!” Now he's a comedian, is he? Never much noticed, him being so melancholy general up until now. Shit I have to put up with! 

 

“Budge up,” says he, a-plonking down on the wooden seat besides me and taking an oar in his right hand. Distracted by the feeling of his lovely thigh squashed against mine, I nonetheless: “What are you playing at? Go and sit down the far end, for balance, Christ sake. I'll row,” I add importantly, leaning over his knees for the right oar. 

 

He propels it out of my reach: “Not at all. I'll do it. I was on the team at Cambridge.” And he extends an arm, flexing it as if that proves any ruddy thing. 

 

Alec: “I'll bet you were.” As if  _that_ means anything! I elbow him vainly and he does the same right back, and we both take an oar in silent mutual agreement and proceed to rotate slowly in a circle, first wobbling left then splashing right. “This isn't getting us anywhere! Reet foolishness!”

 

And again he laughs, bloody haw-haw again but I'm starting to love it, despite, echoing over the cold night, and the moon sparkles thousands of soft yellow shards on the water's surface, and his eyes glimmer with excitement when he looks at me so I make mine do the same back right reflective. We let ourselves drift for a bit. 

 

Hmm... the last two of these apples are actually apricots. Sinking my teeth in, that lovely sweet sticky juice trickles down my chin and fingers; all the same: “Now Maurice... If we're going to have any sort of a chance, make any sort of headway, we better make our plans and then make for them! Don't you reckon?”

 

Maurice: “Yes.” And leaning close, my apricot suspended in my mouth, his boater pushed up against my cap, his lips tickle my ear, he: “And  we munnot lose no time about it.”

 


End file.
